Union Tool Co. v. Wilson, 259 U.S. 107 (1922)
Union Tool Co. v. Wilson
No. 132
Argued March 1, 2, 1922
Decided May 15, 1922
259 U.S. 107
CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Syllabus
1. Upon an application of the plaintiff in a pending suit charging the defendant with several contempts of an injunction in the case, the district court fined the defendant upon part of the charges, partly as punishment and partly as compensation to the plaintiff, and purged the defendant in other respects without prejudice to a renewal of the application.
Held:
(a) That the order, taking character from its criminal feature, was subject as a final judgment to immediate review, on behalf of the defendant, by writ of error from the circuit court of appeals. P. 110.
(b) That, when the order was thus brought before it, the court of appeals acquired jurisdiction to review it in its civil as well as its criminal aspects. P. 111.
(c) That the defendant having taken a writ of error, the plaintiff was entitled to review the part of the order unfavorable to himself, and that, only legal questions arising upon agreed facts being involved, his appropriate method was by a cross-writ of error, irrespective of the remedial provision of the Act of September 6, 1916, c. 448, § 4, 39 Stat. 726. P. 111.
2. An order of the district court in a contempt proceeding which, through failure to apply well settled legal principles to a conceded state of facts, refuses to impose a fine on one party to a suit as compensation to the other for injury resulting from violation of an injunction, is subject to correction by an appellate court. P. 112.
3. A direction by the circuit court of appeals that the district court, in a contempt case, "impose such punishment as may seem proper," interpreted, in view of the opinion and other proceedings, as referring to civil compensation. P. 112.
4. A writ of injunction in a patent infringement suit in the district court may properly bear teste of the Chief Justice of the United States. Rev.Stats., § 911; Jud.Code §§ 289, 291. P. 112.
5. A party knowing of an injunction is bound to obey it even if the writ has not issued. P. 113.
6. Objection to the teste of a writ of injunction may be waived if not seasonably made. P. 113.
7. Where a patentee obtained a injunction forbidding manufacture and sale of machines infringing his patent and of parts sr elements that might be used in combination to effect infringement, and also an interlocutory decree requiring the manufacturer to account for damages and profits arising from employing the invention in machines sold prior to the injunction, but it did not appear that the patentee had received any compensation for the infringement by use of those machines, held that no license to use spare parts in them could be implied, and that sale of such parts, to be so used, was a violation of the injunction for which a remedial fine should have been inflicted on the manufacturer upon application of the patentee. P. 113.
265 F. 669 affirmed.
Certiorari to a judgment of the circuit court of appeals which reversed a judgment of the district court purging the petitioner of contempt of an injunction. The case is stated in the opinion. See 265 F. 669, herein affirmed, and also 262 F. 431.