National Battery Co. v. Western Molded Products, Inc.

Appeal by plaintiffs after judgment in the District Court for defendant dismissing the action.

Appellant is the assignee of letters-patent upon the combination of a moulded battery container and a plaque trade-name plate. The housing for batteries formerly in common use in automobiles was an ordinary wooden box, and the battery manufacturer’s name-plate was tacked or pasted upon *511 it. This housing method gave way to a moulded composition or hard rubber box, with the trade-name moulded integrally.

The battery trade is supplied by companies, who manufacture and market batteries under nationally advertised trade-names, and by wholesale distributors, who buy batteries made up and sell them under their own trade-names. The manufacturers, who sell to such wholesale distributors, supply several or many such distributors. The “blown in the bottle” idea became a material sales advantage and resulted in an economic handicap to the manufacturers for wholesale distributors, and by reflection, to the distributors themselves, because instead of one stock of boxes, a separate stock had to be kept on hand for each distributor supplied.

Young, the patentee, proposed that all boxes be moulded…