Hathaway v. Field

Citations

• 48 App. D.C. 369
• 1919 U.S. App. LEXIS 2328

Syllabus

<p>Patents; Interference; Abandonment; Joint Inventors; Assignee.</p> <p>■ 1. Abandonment of the right to a patent must be affirmatively proved (following Oliver v. Felbel, 20 -App. D. C. 255; Lederer v. Walker, 39 App. D. C. 122; Hubbard v. Berg, 40 App. D. C. 577), but long delay, unexplained, may satisfy the rule (Following Re Mower, 15 App. D. C. 144.)</p> <p>2. In an interference involving a warp-tying machine, where the evidence showed that the junior party conceived the invention in 1900, and reduced it to practice in 1901 by the construction of a machine embodying the invention of the issue, which machine he kept in the factory with which he was connected, and which he exhibited from time to time, but which was not used commercially because one of its parts needed development in order that the machine might be used for handling fine as well as coarse yarns, it was held that his delay in filing an application until 1906 did not show concealment or abandonment. (Distinguishing Mason v. Eephurn, 13 App. D. O. 86, and lie Mower, supra.)</p> <p>3. In an interference involving a warp-uniting machine, where two joint inventors conceived the invention of the issue and disclosed it to a third inventor, who was working for and in behalf of the same common assignee on a warp-tying machine, a related invention, and such third inventor built a. machine in which he embodied the generic ideas of the joint inventors, it was held that such work inured to the benefit of the joint inventors, and that their invention was reduced to practice at the same time that his was.</p>