133 F.2d 192 | 2d Cir. | 1943
The plaintiff has appealed from a judgment dismissing its complaint with respect to a charge of infringement of Design Patent No. 125,540. By amended answer the defendant set up that the patent had been held invalid by this court in the case of Gold Seal Importers v. Morris White Fashions, 2 Cir., 124 F.2d 141, and moved for judgment on the pleadings. The motion was granted on the ground that the validity of the patent had been decided adversely to the plaintiff in that case. But obviously that decision cannot be pleaded as res judicata in a suit against a different infringer not in privity with Morris White Fashions. Nor is it a precedent which the district court was bound to follow, unless the evidence pertinent to the issue of validity is the same in both cases. Smith v.