Keeler v. Standard Folding-Bed Company

[Syllabus from pages 659-660 intentionally omitted]

The Standard Folding-Bed Company, a corporation of the state of New York, filed in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts a bill of complaint against Keeler & Bro., partners doing business in the city of Boston.

By an agreed state of facts, if appears thatt he complainants are assignees, for the state of Massachusetts, of certain letters patent granted to one Lyman Welch, for an improvement in wardrobe bedsteads; that the Welch Folding-Bed Company own the patent rights for the state of Michigan; and that the defendants purchased a carload of said beds from the Welch Folding-Bed Company, at Grand Rapids, Mich., for the purpose of selling them in Massachusetts; and they they afterwards sold and are now engaged in selling the said beds in Boston.

The conclusion in the court below was that the defendants were not protected from the claim of the Massachusetts assignee by having purchased the patented articles from the Michigan assignee, and accordingly there was an injunction and final decree in favor of the complainants, from which an appeal was taken to this court.

Causten Browne and J. Henry Taylor, for appellants.

Edwin T. Rice, for appellees.

Mr. Justice SHIRAS delivered the opinion of the court.