Rules on Marconi Answer

In Tesla Suit Judge Strikes Out Paragraph as Impertinent.

Judge Augustus N. Hand, in an opinion filed yesterday in the United States District Court, ordered struck out as impertinent the eleventh paragraph of the answer of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America made to the annulment and patent infringement suit brought by the Nikola Tesla Company. The paragraph objected to stated that certain claims of the Marconi patents were sustained by Judge Van Vechten Veeder in the Brooklyn Court in the infringement suit brought against the National Electric Signaling Company, and that the same Court decided that the Tesla patents did not anticipate and were not for the same inventions as the Marconi patents. In his ruling, Judge Hand said:

"I can see no principle under which that decision rendered between wholly different parties is binding here or relevant except as a mere legal precedent. It can only be presented as argument in relation to the legal issues involved, but not as a fact to be pleaded or proved. The motion to strike out the eleventh paragraph of the answer as impertinent is, therefore, granted."

Judge Hand refused to strike out paragraphs thirteen and fourteen, which alleged that the complaint did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, and that the complainant is not entitled to any answer or to have the Marconi patents declared void.