, annex; vaiunm. 51
that a court of equity can, byrits writ of injunction, restrain a wrong-
doer, and thusprevent injuries which could, not be fully redressed- by a
verdict and judgment for damages at law. Redress for a mere personal
slander or libel may perhaps properly be left to the courts of law, because
no falsehood, however gross and malicious, can wholly destroy a man’s
reputation with those who know him; but statements and charges in-
tended to frighten away aman’s customers, and intimidate them from
dealingywith him, may wholly break up and ruin him financially, with
noadequate remedy if a court of equity cannot afford protection by its
restraining writ. , . . ,..
The effect of the circulars; sent out by the defendant Kane certainly
mustthave been to intimidate dealers from buying of the complainant,
or dealing in slates of hismanufacture, because of the alleged infringe-
ment ofthe Goodrich patent. No business man wants to incurathe
dangers of a lawsuit for the profits which he may make as a jobber in
handling goods charged to be an infringement of another man’s patent.
The inclination of most business men is to avoid litigation, and to forego
· even certain profits, if threatened with a lawsuit which would be embar-
rassingand vexatious, and might mulct them in damages far beyond
their, prontsgm and hence such persons, although having full faith in a
man’s integrity, and in the merit of his goods, would naturallyavoid
dealing with him for fear of possibly becoming involved in the threatened
litigation. The complainant, as I have already stated, was engaged in
the manufacture of school slates under the Butler and Mallett patents;
the Butler patent being much_older than the Goodrich, and the Mallett
patent being nearly contemporaneous 'in issue with the Goodrich patent,
under which the defendant was manufacturing. But the proof in this
case shows a still olderf patent, granted to one Munger, in 1860, for a
muffled or noiseless slate, which most clearly so far anticipates the patents
of both complainant and defendants, as to limit them, respectively, to
their specific devices. But Ido not think the fact that complainant was ,
the owner of these patents or operating under them, material to the ques-
tions in this easel Thedefendants claim that complaiuant’s slates in-
fringe the Goodrich reissue patent, and threaten complainantfs customers
withsiiits i`f they dealtin-complainants slates. The state of the art to
which the Goodrich patent pertains may be examined for the purpose
of aiding the court in passing upon the question of defendants good iaith
in making-such ·th1‘88.tS,~ and the stateof the art is only material, as it
seemsto me, for this purpose. The court will not attempt-, in a collateral
proceeding like this, to pass upon the validity of the Goodrich patent,
but will consider, in the light of the-proof as tothe state of the art, and
the proof as to defendant’s conducthwhether the_defendant made these
threats against oomplainant’s customers because he in good faith believed
,thatcomplainantsslates infringed his patent, and intended to prosecute
for such infringement, qrwhether such threatswere made solely to intimi-
Qdateand frighten"du‘stomers`_a£way from complainant, and with no interi-
ition of vindicat’ing’thetval*itdity of his patent by a suit or suits; instead
' of going into the courts to test the validity of the Butler patent, or_ the right