Case ID: us-ct-cl_59/html/0954-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Holmes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ELECTRIC BOAT COMPANY v. UNITED STATES
    [57 C. Cls. 497; 263 U. S. 621]
    Judgment was rendered in favor of the United States in the court below. On appeal the judgment was affirmed, and the Supreme Court decided:
    Where the United States, without disclosure 'to it of the scope of an application for patent, obtained by a contract with the applicant a license, at certain rates, to manufacture and use the devices covered hy the application and was later sued by the licen-sor for its use of a device procured from another, which the licensor claimed came -within his application, and subsequent patent, held: (ft) That the Government was not estopped from and circumstances, tliat tile contract was not intended by the parties to apply to the device so used, and (6) that a judgment of the Court of Claims, so limiting the contract, upon facts found, was not erroneous as a matter of law.
   Mr. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court January 28, 1924.