Case ID: us-ct-cl_65/html/0761-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Chief Justice Taft", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

RICHMOND SCREW ANCHOR CO. v. UNITED STATES
    [61 C. Cls. 397; 275 U. S. 331]
    Judgment was rendered in favor of the United States in the court below. Upon certiorari the judgment was
    
      reversed,
    
    the Supreme Court deciding:
    1. Patent No. 1,228,120, issued May 29, 1917, to Lenke for a cargo beam capable of moving on a horizontal axis so as to present its full strength in the line of stress, thus permitting the use of less metal than was required for the fixed beam of the prior art, and saving expense in installation — held valid.
    2. Where two reasons are given in an opinion for the same decision, neither is olñter dictum.
    
    3. Rev. Stat. § 3477, forbidding assignments of claims against the United States prior to allowance, liquidation and issuance of a warrant for payment, applied to claims for infringement of a patent.
    4. The right to recover for past infringement of a patent by á private party is assignable with the patent.
    5. Under the act of June 25, 1910, where a patented article was made for the United States by a contractor, unauthorized' by the patent owner, and used by the United States, the patent owner had an assignable right of action for the infringement against the contractor; and a claim against the United States for reasonable compensation for the use, assertable in the Court of Claims, but subject to the provisions of Rev. Stats. 3477 forbidding assignments.
    6. Under the act of July 1, 1918, which did away with the remedy against the contractor in such cases, and confined the patent owner to a suit against the United States in the Court of Claims for “ recovery of his reasonable and entire compensation for such use and manufacture,” the claim of the patent owner against 'the United States for manufacture and use occurring since the date of the act, is assignable with the patent, notwithstanding the sweeping terms of Rev. Stats. § 3477.
    7. Federal statutes should be so construed as to avoid serious doubt of their constitutionality.
    8. The special intent to prevent such assignments, deducible from the later statute and its history, though not expresed, must prevail over the broad general terms of the earlier one forbidding assignments.
   Mr. Chief Justice Taft

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court January 8, 1928.