Kessler v. Eldred

Kessler v. Eldred
Supreme Court of the United States
Submitted April 17, 1907 Decided May 13, 1907
Full case name	Kessler v. Eldred
Citations	206 U.S. 285 (more) 27 S. Ct. 611; 51 L. Ed. 1065; 1907 U.S. LEXIS 1164
Court membership
Chief Justice Melville Fuller Associate Justices John M. Harlan · David J. Brewer Edward D. White · Rufus W. Peckham Joseph McKenna · Oliver W. Holmes Jr. William R. Day · William H. Moody
Case opinion
Majority	Moody, joined by unanimous

Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907), 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.^[1]

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. Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907).
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

• Works related to Kessler v. Eldred at Wikisource
• Text of Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907) is available from: CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress OpenJurist