McElmurry v. Arkansas Power & Light Co.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
995 F.2d 1576 (1993)
- Written by Craig Conway, LLM
Facts
McElmurry (plaintiff) sued Arkansas Power & Light Co. (AP&L) (defendant) for infringing a patent claiming a system for use in collecting particulate matter during a coal burning process. Bowman and Roberts, consultant and employee, respectively, for AP&L developed the patented invention while working for and at the direction of AP&L. Once on his own, Bowman licensed the invention to McElmurry and sought to market it to companies, including AP&L. McElmurry failed to win a bid for certain work involving selling and installing the invention. AP&L then provided the specifications for the invention to a third party company to build and install the invention in AP&L’s power plants, which gave rise to the suit. The District Court held on summary judgment that AP&L had shop rights in the invention, and McElmurry appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Rich, C.J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 811,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.