Decisions Relating to Patents - December 10, 1887


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17. S. Circuit Court.--Southern District of New York. MONTROSS V. MABIE. IMPLIED LICENSE TO USE. BROWN, J.: I The extent of an implied license to make and sell patented articles is to be construed according to the presumed intent of the parties, as inferred from the circumstances. A firm having been largely engaged during several years in manufacturing and selling stoves upon designs patented by one of the partners, and accounts between them having been repeatedly settled embracing such sales and the profits thereon, as firm business, held, without regard to the question whether the patent was equitably the exclusive property of the patentee, (1) that a license by the patentee to the firm to make the stoves and to sell those manufactured was implied ; (2) that such license, by necessary implication, was co-ex tensive with the business of the firm, and continued until the copartnership affairs were wound up by any lawful agencies for that purpose ; (3) that, consequently, the copartner of the patentee had the same authority after dissolution as before to sell for the benefit of the firm the stoves manufactured for sale before dissolu tion ; and (4) that a receiver of the partnership effects, appointed by a State court in a suit brought for wind ing up the affairs of the partnership, had a similar authority to sell the stoves remaining on hand, both as the representative of the parties and as a lawful agency j for closing up the partnership business, and was by necessary implication included in the implied license. An application for an injunction to restrain him from selling was therefore refused. 17. S. Circuit Court.--Northern District of Illinois. TOEPFER v. GOETZ et al. MALT KILN PATENT. BLODGETT, J.: This was a bill in equity to restrain the alleged in fringement of a patent granted April 27, 1880, to the complainant, Wenzel Toepfer, for a malt kiln. It is wholly irrelevant to inquire whether the patentee ! was obliged to limit himself by the ruling of the Patent Office. It is enough to say that he did so limit himself. Although the patent may show features which were patentable and which, if properly patented, would render the defendants liable as infringers, such matters are abandoned to the public by the act of the patentee in accepting a claim which fails to comprehend the same. Round rock shafts in tilting malt kiln trays are old and now common property, and it is an old expedient to tilt frames by square rock shafts ; but where the patentee sees fit to limit his claim to a square rock shaft, the defendants who use a round shaft cannot be held liable. Also, while a patent may cover a new hook, it cannot prevent the use of an old door latch. 17. S. Circuit Court.-Eastern District of Penn sylvania. GOOD V. BAILEY et al. HEMP COMBING MACHINE. BUTLER, J.: Letters Patent No. 95,462, granted to John Good, dated October 5, 1869, for improvements In machinery for drawing and combing flax, construed strictly. Where all the elements employed in forming the com-' bination are old, and the combination alone is new, and this differs but slightly from that of machines previously manufactured or described, the claim for it can only be sustained in connection with the special ! mechanical devices employed in forming it. I The employment of other devices, though a combina tion of the same general character, yet producing a 1 more perfect combination, one better adapted to the 1 contemplated use, is not infringement. Insect Remedies. The report on entomology made by W. B. Alwood to the Columbus Horticultural Society, last winter, ' states that many remedies were employed on the two described cabbage worms, consisting of alum water of different degrees of strength, tansy water, tomato water, benzine, coal oil emulsions of different strengths, Hammond's slug shot, Cayenne pepper, half a dozen remedies from England, several preparations of tobacco soap and pyrethrum. None proved of any value ex cept the tobacco soaps and pyrethrum. The tobacco soaps prepared with potash ere quite efficient, the value of which was ascribed to the potash. Pyrethrum is recommended as the best remedy, being perfectly safe, easy of application, and more deadly on the worms than any remedy used. Powder of good quality, mixed with three times its bulk of flour, was found perfectly effective, applied with a dusting bellows. One pound, costing fifty cents, was enough to cover an 1 acre if properly handled.

SA Supplements Vol 24 Issue 623suppThis article was published with the title “Patents” in SA Supplements Vol. 24 No. 623supp (), p. 369
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican12101887-9958csupp

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