Case ID: us-ct-cl_26/html/0620-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Brewer", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

A. S. SOLOMONS v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [21 C. Cls. R., 479 ; 22 id., 335; 137 U. S. R., 342.]
    
      On the claimant’s Appeal.
    
    The Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is officially assigned to the duty of devising an internal-revenue tax stamp. He produces a stamp previously devised hy himself while chief, and perfected with the means and appliances of the Bureau. He states to the Commissioner of Internal Revonue that for these reasons he shall charge nothing for the invention. Subsequently he resigns his office and takes out a patent. It is assigned to the claimant in consideration of an antecedent indebtedness. He sends a letter to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue relating to compensation. The Commissioner makes no reply, and the Government continues to use the stamp.
    The court below decides:
    (1) Where an officer is properly assigned to the task of devising an instrument, implement, or subject of manufacture for the public service, the Government bearing the expenses incidental to the invention, the officer continuing to receive his salary, a presumption of implied contract does not arise, and no action to recover a royalty can be maintained.
    (2) The fac| that the invention was made by the officer before he was assigned to the task of devising one does not take the case out of the foregoing principle, if the cost of perfecting it was borne by the Government, the work being done in the Bureau of which he was chief, and by workmen under his control.
    (3) Where an officer is assigned to the duty of selecting a thing for public use he owes the utmost good faith to the Government, which is entitled to his unbiased judgment.
    
      (4; An officer occupying a position of public trust- is, in the matter of the selection of a tiling to be used in the public servic1, a guardian of the public welfare. It would be contrary to public policy and to the principle which governs the transactions of guardian and ward, or of trustee and cesUvi que irust, to allow him to take advantage of the trust. In such cases the law does not imply a contract.
    (5) The Internal Revenue Act, 20th July, 1868 (15 Stat. L., 125), did not extend to the invention of the stamp subsequently adopted by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, nor preclude the inventor from selling the patented device to other persons.
    (6) Though the Government may not obtain a monopoly of an invention made by one of its officers in its service, nor a right to share in the profits, or exclude other persons from the use of it, nevertheless it may acquire the right to manufacture and use without liability to the inventor.
    The decision of the court below is affirmed on substantially the last ground.
   Mr. Justice Brewer

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court December 8, 1890.