211 F. 1014 | W.D.N.Y. | 1914
This action is brought in equity to enjoin the National School of Nursing from using and distributing instruction paper No. 11, entitled “Medicines and Their Administration,” which complainant claims is an infringement of its copyrighted lecture No. 6, entitled, “Remedies. The Methods by which they are Administered,” and for damages. The litigants are competitors in business; the complainant conducting a correspondence school of nursing at Jamestown, and the defendant, at Elmira. The plan of teaching includes a series of printed lectures or courses, of instruction which are contained in brochures and delivered by mail to pupils residing at distant points. It is undisputed that there were other correspondence
The defendant company disputes the validity of the registration of the copyrighted lecture No. 6, denies infringement, and alleges that said lecture was not copyrightable, as the contents thereof were matters of common knowledge long before it was written.
Defendant’s instruction paper No-. 11 in its present form was unfairly produced and is an infringement of the copyright in controversy, and therefore its publication and distribution must be enjoined. In reaching this conclusion I have disregarded the testimony introduced by complainant, and tentatively received at the trial, tending to show unfair simulation by defendant of complainant’s stationery and .advertising literature; it may be -stricken out as inadmissible to show an intention to imitate complainant’s business methods.
The complainant may have a decree, with costs, but without damages.