U.S. Supreme Court RADIO CORP. v. RADIO ENGINEERING LABORATORIES, 293 U.S. 1 (1934)

[Page 293 U.S. 1, 14]

patent, the delay being extraordinary, it is argued, if a conception so important in its possibilities of profit and utility was present in his mind. For this delay he given his explanations, lack of funds, preoccupation with other uses of the audion having a cash value at the moment (its use, for illustration, as a telephone repeater), and perhaps chiefly the belief that he was a pioneer in the art without a rival in the offing. These explanations, even if not wholly convincing, are not so manifestly inadequate as to lead us to say that the conception of the oscillator as a generator of radio frequencies has been proved in any clear or certain way to have been developed and applied by Armstrong before it was born in De Forest's mind. To say this, moreover, would not be enough, even if we were willing to go so far, which, as already stated, we are not. Vacuum tube oscillators have a commercial use for other purposes besides radio. If De Forest's explanations and excuses were to be disregarded altogether, the result at most would be that the apparatus of the coupled circuits had potencies and values more important than the uses that were immediately apparent, potencies and values at least dimly apprehended, and never discarded or forgotten down to the time of their complete fruition. The benefit of all alike belonged to the inventor. Corona Cord Tire Co. v. Dovan Chemical Corp., 276 U.S. 358, 369, 48 S.Ct. 380; Roberts v. Ryer, , 157; Stow v. Chicago, 104 U.S. 547, 550; cf. Lovell Manufacturing Co. v. Cary, 147 U.S. 623, 634, 13 S.Ct. 472; The Telephone Cases, 126 U.S. 1, 536, 8 S.Ct. 778; Robinson, Patents, vol. 1, 81, p. 124.

The decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals should be reversed and that of the District Court affirmed.

It is so ordered.

The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. Footnotes

Footnote 1 'Whenever a patent on application is refused, either by the Commissioner of Patents or by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia upon appeal from the commissioner, the applicant may have remedy by bill in equity; and the court having cognizance thereof, on notice to adverse parties and other due proceedings had, may adjudge that such applicant is entitled, according to law, to receive a patent for his invention, as specified in his claim, or for any part thereof, as the facts in the case may appear. ...'

Footnote 2 'Whenever there are interfering patents, any person interested in any one of them, or in the working of the invention claimed under either of them, may have relief against the interfering patentee, and all parties interested under him, by suit in equity against the owners of the interfering patent; and the court, on notice to adverse parties, and other due proceedings had according to the course of equity, may adjudge and declare either of the patents void in whole or in part, or inoperative, or invalid in any particular part of the United States, according to the interest of the parties in the patent or the invention patented. But no such judgment or adjudication shall affect the right of any person except the parties to the suit and those deriving title under them subsequent to the rendition of such judgment.'