LATENT RIGHTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 174, 25 July 1928, Page 5

LATENT RIGHTS.

MILKING MACHINE DISPUTE. FIXAL DISMISSAL OF APPEAL. The question of patent rights in a milking machine has been settled by a judgment of the Court of Appeal, delivered in Wellington yesterday by Mr. Justice Sim. It was a case in which S. H. Knapp, patentee of the Knapp milking machine, appealed against a decision by Mr. Justice Ostler, respondents being the Farmers' Milking Machine Company, Limited, who are distributors of the Warren machine. Mr. Justice Sim (who sat with Justices Reed and Smith) said Judge Ostler had treated the findings of the arbitrator as being against the respondent, and held that they could not be set aside as being against the weight of evidence. He held, however, that the arbitrator had misdirected himself on point of law, and, as in his opinion Warren's paten's was a good patent and had been infringed by the appellant, he granted an injunction against the appellant, notwithstanding the findings of the arbitrator. The appellant contended that the Court was not entitled to deal with the case in this way, and that judgment should have been entered for the appellant on the findings of the arbitrator. The arbitrator found that Blackhama patent, a device evolved in Melbourne, was not in any respect an anticipation of Warren's patent. The Appeal Court held that appellant was bound by this finding. Dismissing the appeal, with costs on the High Court scale, the Court expressed the opinion that the answers given by the arbitrator to the four questions submitted to him amounted to a finding of infringement and justified the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Justice Ostler that the appellant had taken the pith and marrow of Warren's patent. There might be improvements on Warren's machine, but they did not prevent the appellant's machine from being an infringement of Warren's patent. Further answers given by the arbitrator made the matter clear and amounted to a finding of what, in law, was an infringement.