SELDEN DECREES VALID.

The New York Times
August 14, 1910

Ford Motor Company Can Get Appeal by Filing Bond.

Decrees were filed in the United States Circuit Court at New York last week in the principal suits under the Selden patent covering the modern gasoline automobile, which is considered one of the most important patent litigations of recent years.

The decrees now entered hold the patent valid and infringed by the Ford Motor Company, and by Panhard and Levassor and their agents, and order an injunction to issue restraining the manufacture, use, and sale of infringing automobiles.

The original opinion by Charles M. Hough, Judge of the United States Circuit Court, Southern District of New York, sustaining the validity of the Selden patent, was rendered last September after the final hearing in the cases. Since that time it has been necessary to substitute the Columbia Motor Car Company as one of the complainants. The necessary steps to accomplish this were taken and the final hearings regarding the decrees took place at Narragansett Pier on July 19.

Judge Hough has simultaneously filed a memorandum opinion which provides for the contingency of the defendants taking an appeal to the Court of Appeals. This memorandum, among other things, states that if an appeal is taken by the defendants the Ford Motor Company, then an order will be entered suspending the injunction pending the appeal; if the Ford Company files a bond, which the court says shall be in the sum of $350,000. If such an order is entered further conditions provide that the defendants will be required to file with the court sworn monthly statements of their business.

In the test suits against Panhard and Levassor similar provision is made that an order suspending injunction may be entered if appeal is taken; but a bond of $16,000 must be filed together with the monthly statements. In the three other cases, that is, the suit against Wanamaker, O. G. Gude & Co., and also suit against the importers, Henry and Albert C. Neubauer, there is no provision for the suspension of the injunction.