Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/398

 386 FEDERAL REP0RTE8. �Exceptions io niaster's report in three cases — two of them by the Bigelow Carpet Company, for infringement of letters patent Nos. 10,870 and 10,778, for designs for carpets; and the third by the Hart- ford Carpet Company, for infringement of letters patent No. 11,074, for designs for carpets. The respondents had made no defence, and final decrees having been entered against them, the cases were re- ferred to a master to ascertain and report the damages. In each case complainants proved that during the first six months after the introduction of the design a specifie quantity of the carpet was sold, and they also gave evidence of its cost and their profit on it. The quantity of the infringing carpet subsequently sold by respondents was also shown. Complainants claimed that the effect of respond- ents putting upon the market carpets of the same design at a less price was to decrease the demand for the original carpet, and compel a change of design. They claimed damages based upon estimates made by their witnesses as to the probable amount of their sales of the original carpet if respondents had not inf ringed, and no other cause hadoccurred to diminish the demand. They also claimed the expense of changing their designs, as estimated by their witnesse^. The master reported that while the efiect of the infringement was to decrease the complainants' sales, he was entirely unable to find from the evidence the amount of their damage, or even to approximate its sum, and he therefore awarded only nominal damages. To this report complainants filed exceptions. �A. V. Briesen and Joseph C. Fraley, for complainants. �George E. Buckley, for respondents. �McKennan, C. J. These were all suits for infringement by the re- spondents of designs for carpets patented to the complainants. The infringing designs are exact counterparts of the patented ones, and carpets embodying them were put upon the market by the respond- ents some time after the date of the patents and the introduction of carpets containing the designs described in them by the complainants. No defence was made by the respondents, and they therefore oceupy the attitude of wilful infringers. �Under these circumstances the respondents ought to be held to the most rigid accountability, and no intendment ought to be made in their favor founded upon the alleged inconclusiveness of the complain- ants' proof of loss. On the other hand, such proof ought to be con- sidercd and interpreted most liberally in favor of the complainants, within the limit of an approximately accurate ascertainment of their damages. : v ��� �