Audio-Visual Marketing Corporation, and Cross-Appellees v. Omni Corporation, and Cross-Appellants

McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

This is a dispute between a manufacturer and its erstwhile sole and exclusive distributor. John P. Cline, an electrical engineer, invented a machine designed to drill children in arithmetic. Cline called the device a Multiputer, and he described its operation as follows:

It’s a teaching device. One could liken it to flash cards. We are all familiar with flash cards that teachers use to drill students in arithmetic. The Multiputer is an electronic way of doing that so that ran dom numbers are presented to the student, like the machine will indicate “Three plus five…