Court Opinion

ID: 3605697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 23:51:14.171617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:40:05.533232
License: Public Domain

An inventor of a new and useful improvement has a right to its exclusive enjoyment, which right he may protect by a patent or by concealment. The plaintiff's patent had expired and all of the parts of the pump represented by the patterns had been for a long time on sale in the form of a completed pump. The patent on the original invention having expired and the plaintiff having voluntarily made the subsequent improvements public by selling the improved article, he lost his right to their exclusive use. The plaintiff's counsel concedes this; but says that while patterns could be made from the several parts of the pump, from which pumps like those made and sold by the plaintiff could be produced, that it was more difficult to make patterns from sections of the pump than from the patterns. This was so found by the court and cannot be gainsaid. The invention was not the patterns but the idea represented by them, to which the plaintiff had lost his exclusive right. Neither the defendant nor the man who made the patterns sustained any relation by contract with the plaintiff. They were neither the servants nor partners of the plaintiff, and they owed him no duty not owed by the whole world. The act, at most, was a *Page 38 
trespass and the plaintiff made no case for equitable relief. It is neither asserted nor found that the defendant is unable to respond in damages. The cases cited to sustain the judgment arose out of the relation of master and servant or between partners, and in all of them the idea had not been disclosed to the public, but had been kept secret by the inventor.
The judgment should be reversed and a new trial granted, with costs to abide the event.
All concur with VANN, J., except FOLLETT, Ch. J. dissenting, and BRADLEY and HAIGHT, JJ., not sitting.
Judgment affirmed.