Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/275/331/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-08-18 10:47:08
Document Index: 737778174

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3477', '§ 3477', '§ 3477', '§ 937', '§ 3477', '§ 3477', '§ 3477']

RICHMOND SCREW ANCHOR CO. V. UNITED STATES, 275 U. S. 331 - Volume 275 - 1928 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 275 > RICHMOND SCREW ANCHOR CO. V. UNITED STATES, 275 U. S. 331 (1928) > Full Text
We come, then, to the question whether § 3477 and the Brothers case apply to the case before us, and that requires an interpretation of the amending Act of 1918, and its operation upon the rights of the assignee and owner of the patent and its claims for infringement. Exceptions to the general language of § 3477 have been recognized by this Court because not within the evil at which the statute aimed. Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. United States, supra; Western P. R. Co. v. United States, supra; Goodman v. Niblack, supra; Price v. Forrest, 173 U. S. 410, 173 U. S. 421-423; Parrington v. Davis, 285 F. 741, 742. We think that the situation created by the provisions of the amending act of 1918 is such that § 3477 does not apply to all of the assigned claims of the petitioners for infringement under that act. The Act of June 25, 1910, c. 423, 36 Stat. 851, provided that whenever an invention described in and covered by a patent of the United States should hereafter be used by the United States without license of the owner thereof or lawful right to use the same, such owner might recover reasonable compensation for such use by suit in the Court of Claims. The Act contained a number of provisos, only one of which is important here -- namely, that in any such suit, the
No. 5,605; Waterman v. Mackenzie, 138 U. S. 252, 138 U. S. 256, 138 U. S. 261; Gayler v. Wilder, 10 How. 477, 51 U. S. 494; Robinson on Patents, Vol. 3, § 937, p. 122. If now § 3477 applies, and these assignments are rendered void, the effect of the Act of 1918 is to take away from the assignee and present owner not only the cause of action against the government, but also to deprive it of the cause of action against the infringing contractor for injury by his infringement. The intention and purpose of Congress in the Act of 1918 was to stimulate contractors to furnish what was needed for the war, without fear of becoming liable themselves for infringements to inventors or the owners or assignees of patents. The letter of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy upon which the Act of 1918 was passed leaves no doubt that this was the occasion for it. To accomplish this governmental purpose, Congress exercised the power to take away the right of the owner of the patent to recover from the contractor for infringements. This is not a case of a mere declared immunity of the government from liability for its own torts. It is an attempt to take away from a private citizen his lawful claim for damage to his property by another private person which, but for this act, he would have against the private wrongdoer. This result, if § 3477, Rev.Stat., applies and avoids the assignment, would seem to raise a serious question as to the constitutionality of the Act of 1918 under the Fifth Amendment to the federal Constitution. We must presume that Congress, in the passage of the Act of 1918, intended to secure to the owner of the patent the exact equivalent of what it was taking away from him. It was taking away his assignable claims against the contractor for the latter's infringement of his patent. The assignability of such claims was an important element in their value, and a matter to be taken into account in providing for their just equivalent. If § 3477 applied, such equivalence was impossible.
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