Tabor v. . Hoffman , 118 N.Y. 30 ( 1889 )

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] It is conceeded by the appellant that, independent of copyright or letters patent, an inventor or author, has, by the common law, an exclusive property in his invention or composition, until by publication it becomes the property of the general public. This concession seems to be well founded and to be sustained by authority. (Palmer v. DeWitt, 47 N.Y. 532; Potter v.McPherson, 21 Hun, 559; Hammer v. Barnes, 26 How. Pr. 174;Kiernan v. M.Q. Tel. Co. 50 id. 194; Woolsey v. Judd, 4 Duer, 379; Peabody v.Norfolk, 98 Mass. 452; Salomon v. Hertz,40 N.J. Eq. Rep. 400; Phillips on Patents, 333-341; Drone on Copyright, 97-139.)

As the plaintiff had placed the perfected pump upon the market, without obtaining the protection of the patent laws, he thereby published that invention to the world and no longer had any exclusive property therein. (Rees v. Peltzer, 75 Ill. 475;Clemens v. Balford, 14 Fed. Rep. 728; Short's Laws of Literature, 48.)

But the completed pump was not his only invention, for he had also discovered means, or machines in the form of patterns, which greatly aided, if they were not indispensable, in the manufacture of the pumps. This discovery he had not intentionally published, but had keep it secret, unless by disclosing the invention of the pump, he had also disclosed the invention of the patterns by which the pump was made. The precise question, therefore, presented by this appeal, as it appears to us, is whether there is a secret in the patterns that yet remains a secret, although the pump has been given to the world? The pump consists of many different pieces, the most of which are made by running melted brass or iron in a mold. The mold is formed by the use of patterns, which exceed in number the separate parts of the pump, as some of them are divided into several sections. The different pieces out of which the pump is made are not of the same size as the corresponding patterns, owing to the shrinkage of the metal in cooling. In constructing patterns it is necessary to make allowances, not only for the shrinkage, which is greater in brass than in iron, but also for the expansion of the completed casting under different conditions of heat and cold, so that the different parts of the pump will properly fit together and adapt themselves by nicely balanced expansion and contraction to pumping either hot or cold liquids. If the patterns were of the same size as the corresponding portions of the pump, the castings made therefrom would neither fit together, nor if fitted, work properly when pumping fluids varying in temperature. The size of the patterns cannot be discovered by merely using the different sections of the pump, but various changes must be made and those changes can only be ascertained by a series of experiments, involving the expenditure of both time and money. Are not the size and shape of the patterns, therefore, a secret which the plaintiff has not published and in which he still has exclusive property? Can it be truthfully said that this secret can be learned from the pump when experiments must be added to what can be learned from the pump before a pattern of the proper size can be made? As more could be learned by measuring the patterns, than could be learned by measuring the component parts of the pump, was there not a secret that belonged to the discoverer, until he abandoned it by publication, or it was fairly discovered by another?

If a valuable medicine, not protected by patent, is put upon the market, anyone may, if he can by chemical analysis and a series of experiments, or by any other use of the medicine itself aided by his own resources only, discover the ingredients and their proportions. If he thus finds out the secret of the proprietor, he may use it to any extent that he desires without danger of interference by the courts. But, because this discovery may be possible by fair means, it would not justify a discovery by unfair means, such as the bribery of a clerk, who in course of his employment had aided in compounding the medicine, and had thus become familiar with the formula. The courts have frequently restrained persons, who have learned a secret formula for compounding medicines, beverages and the like while in the employment of the proprietor, from using it themselves or imparting it to others to his injury, thus in effect holding, as was said by the learned General Term, "that the sale of the compounded article to the world was not a publication of the formula or device used in its manufacture." (Hammer v. Barnes,supra; Morison v. Moat, 21 L.J. [N.S.] 248; S.C., 20 id. 513; Green v. Folgham, 1 Sim. Stu. 398; Yovatt v.Winyard, 1 Jac. Walk. 394; Peabody v. Norfolk, supra;Salomon v. Hertz, supra; Kerr on Injunctions, 181; High on Injunctions, § 663.)

The fact that one secret can be discovered more easily than another, does not affect the principle. Even if resort to the patterns of the plaintiff was more of a convenience than a necessity, still if there was a secret, it belonged to him, and the defendant had no right to obtain it by unfair means, or to use it after it was thus obtained. We think that the patterns were a secret device that was not disclosed by the publication of the pump, and that the plaintiff was entitled to the preventive remedies of the court. While the defendant could lawfully copy the pump, because it had been published to the world, he could not lawfully copy the patterns because they had not been published, but were still, in every sense, the property of the plaintiff, who owned not only the material substance, but also the discovery which they embodied.

The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.