Bessemer Steel Co. v. Reese

Citations

• 122 Pa. 392
• 15 A. 807
• 1888 Pa. LEXIS 617

Syllabus

<p>(а) In pursuance of an offer made, an inventor contracted with a company to assign to them certain letters patent and the inventions, methods and processes covered by applications for letters patent made by him then pending in the patent office, and the letters patent which might issue thereon, for three described processes and inventions “together with all other letters patent and applications therefor, if any,” which belonged to him, “ relating to or connected with the manufacture of pig iron, iron or steel ingots, blooms and billets, and the conversion or treating of iron or steel into rails, blooms, billets or plates,” the assignments to “ cover and embrace any and all re-issues, renewals, improvements, or extensions of the said letters patent now issued, or which may hereafter be issued, under the said applications or any modifications thereof.”</p> <p>(б) By a supplemental instrument executed by himself alone, but under seal, the inventor agreed that the former contract should “ embrace in and among the inventions and improvements which I shall he bound thereunder to assign and transfer;.....any and all processes in the metallurgy of iron and steel or devices for the manipulationof the same relative to the manufacture of pig iron, iron or steel ingots, blooms, billets and plates, which I may hereafter invent and apply to have patented, during the continuance of the foregoing agreement, and also any letters patent which may issue for such processes and devices,” provided the company “ shall elect to take, own and possess the same; such processes and devices when transferred to the said, company at its request, to be subject to all the provisions of the foregoing agreement with the same effect in all respects as if they had originally been mentioned therein.”</p> <p>1. Construing said instruments, the subsequent inventions, together with the subsequent applications for patents therefor, and patents actually granted, were clearly brought within the original co