The Portland daily press., 1876-05-04
Superior COurf.
superior court.
MAY CIVIL AND CRIMINAL TERM, 1876, syMoNps


MAY CIVIL AND CRIMINAL TERM, 1876. syMoNps.
j., PRESIDING.
WEDNEsDAY.-John W. Jones ct ais. VS.. George
Burnham, DR.. ct ais. This was an action brought
by the plaintiffs as owners of the patents for packing
green corn granted to John W. Jones as assignee OF
Isaac Winslow to recover license fees from the de-
PENDANT firm Of Burnham 81 Morrill, upon green
corn packed by them under license from plaintiffs
to use said patents dated August 25th, 1874. The
defendants pleaded that these patents had been held
void by the decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States in the of Jones ct ais. VS.. Sewal
admir- of Clark, and allowed to use the opinion
ofthe court delivered in December last by Judge
Hunt with the same force and effect as the record of
the case would have had If a final decree had been
entered, no mandate having been received from
Washington at the present time. They also plead
that they had received no manner OF consideration
or benefit, pecunfary or otherwise from the taking
of said license but that the taking OF and packing I'M
ing under the was occasion of great loss to
them. Also that If there originally any consid-
Grafton for their contract to pay license fees the
had wholly tailed and finally that the letters pa
tent in question known to the plaintiffs to be
void at the time they granted their license and that
the defendants were induced to enter into the same
by fraud of the plaintiff.
appeared in evidence that at the time this license
was granted these patents had been sustained as
valid by the opinion of Justice Clifford in the Maine
Circuit in 1885, that after that opinion delivered
these defendants who had previously assisted in and
contributed to the defence of the suit of Jones and
Sewal, concluded 60 longer dispute the validity
of the patents and took the license in question by
which they agreed to pay twenty cents per dozen
for each dozen of cans of corn packed; that they
worked under this license and paid royalty in 1874
but that when the time arrived for payment of
amount due upon corn packed by them in 1875, they
refused to pay until the case OF Jones and Sewall,
then about to be heard at Washington, decided,
and after that decision was announced refused to
pay at all upon the grounds above stated.
After the evidence was out the court, deeming the
questions involved to be wholly matter Of law, and
that the having been during the progress OF the
trial discussed at length with elaborate reference to
authorities the part of counsel, ruled In substance
follows: That the fact that the parties in Jones
Sewall were other than the parties in this suit did
not render the record case inadmssibe against
the plaintiffs in this suit but that the record i'm
material, since even If the patents invalid the
defendants liable at law for any license fees due
upon corn packed by them before giving notice to
plaintiffs that they abandoned their license, be-
fore the decision was rendered in Jones Sewall
and that as regarded any fraud on the part Of the
plaintiffs, the defendants had failed to establish
aprma acie case and therefore directed the jury to
find a verdict for the plaintiffs for the sum OF
$S5s1.45 the full amount claimed
Defendants except, and the case goes forward to
the Law Court upon questions of law above stated.
Mattocks s. Fox. Strout s. Holmes.