Kessler v. Eldred

Kessler v. Eldred

Decided May 13[1], 1907
Full case name '
Docket nos. XX-XXX
Argument Oral argument
Reargument Reargument
Opinion announcement Opinion announcement
Court membership
Chief Justice
Melville Fuller

Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907) 27 S.Ct. 611, was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court defined some effects of a court decision that an inventor had not infringed on a patent.

Background

Eldred had acquired a patent for an electric lamp lighter.[2] Kessler's business manufactured electric cigar lighters. Eldred sued Kessler's company for patent infringement, but Indiana courts found no infringement. Later Eldred sued a distributor of Kessler's devices for infringement, and Kessler lost business as a result. Kessler took over the defense against this lawsuit too, and countersued. The case came from the seventh Circuit Court to the Supreme Court.

Justice Moody issued the opinion, finding among other things that Eldred's second lawsuit was a "wrongful interference" in Kessler's business.

One analyst says "The seldom-used Kessler Doctrine (Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907)) bars patent infringement litigation against systems found not to infringe in a prior action but sold subsequent to that action, even though claim and issue preclusion do not."[3]

References

  1. ↑ Sources differ: says May 13, and says May 1
  2. ↑ The original inventor was Chambers, whose 1893 was US patent 492913 (available at google patents).
  3. ↑ Peter E. Heuser. The Federal Circuit Breathes New Life into the Kessler Doctrine. March 28, 2014.

External links

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