Gerrans

This is a suit for the infringement of the plaintiff's patent, No. 2,133,442, covering a tray-loading device used in the spreading of prunes on drying trays. Defendant has admitted the fact that he has committed a technical infringement. By way of defense, defendant claims that plaintiff’s patent is invalid for several reasons, the chief one of which is that plaintiff’s device lacked novelty and inventiveness due to the state of prior art at the time the patent application was filed in 1936. To substantiate this point, defendant has submitted in evidence numerous prior patents in an attempt to show that none of the elements of plaintiff’s patent were new or performed any new function. Plaintiff’s evidence consists of the statutory presumption of validity, 35 U.S.C.A. § 282 , and the commercial success of the “invention”. The case can be decided on this initial issue, hence there is no necessity to consider plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages, or defendant’s other two grounds of invalidity, namely, inadequate description and violation of the marking statute.

I. Were the Elements of Plaintiff’s Patented Device Established by the Prior Art?

In lay language plaintiff’s device can…