$253,875.80
The result of the manufacturing business is an excess of receipts over
expenditures of $37,074.70. This statement, however, allows nothing for
manufacturer's profits. An allowance for such profit ought to be made but
in this case the object is to eliminate from the gross receipts such
profits as have in any manner accrued from or by reason of the inventions
claimed in the patents. Now receipts or profits that result from business
talents or skill in manufacturing or in financeering are not receipts or
profits in any manner accruing from or by reason of an invention. In the
case of Seymour and Morgan vs. McCormick-Howards Reports Vol. 16 p. 480,
the Supreme Court of the United States held that the ruling of Judge
Nelson that the whole profits of the manufacture of Reaping machines
in which one small part of the machines infringed a patent was to be
considered as accruing from the use of the patented part was erroneous,
and that a reasonable manufacturer's profit for the use of the Capital
so, in addition to the actual cost of the machine must first be deducted
from the gross receipts, and if then there was any excess, that might be
assigned to patents. This decision I should deem binding and conclusive
upon the subject even if I did not think that the values of business
capital and talent are as fairly charges against the receipts of business
as the values of a business house or tools.
[Sidenote: An Inadequate Profit]
In this case there is only an excess of $37,074.70 of the receipts over
the expenditure or something less than 14 per cent upon the gross amount
of sales. This is a very inadequate profit for manufacturing and selling,
but it is all there is, and it is all that I can allow.
If the excess of the receipts over the expenditures had amounted to three
times fourteen per cent, I should have had no hesitation in allowing the
whole of it for manufacturer's profit, and should not have deemed it more
than a reasonable allowance in view of the testimony of Long, which shows
that his firm have made a profit of over fifty per cent after paying
patent fees, on their manufacture of reapers.
It seems to be supposed from the reference which has been made to
Commissioner Holt's decision in the case of McCormick's application for
the extension of his patent of 1845, that he entertained views at
variance with those I have expressed as to the justice of allowing
manufacturer's profits as
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