Reece Folding Mach. Co. v. Fenwick

Citations

• 140 F. 287
• 2 L.R.A.N.S. 1094
• 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 3933
• 2 L.R.A (N.S.) 1094

Syllabus

<p>1. Contracts — Sale op Future Inventions — Validity.</p> <p>A contract by an inventor, who has sold inventions, to disclose and assign to the purchaser .any future inventions made by him for improvements thereon, is not contrary to public policy, but is valid and enforceable, if based on a valuable consideration.</p> <p>2. Same — Enforcement—Estoppel.</p> <p>Defendant contracted to assign to complainant any future inventions he might make in a certain art, but,‘on being discharged from complainant’s service, regarded the contract as terminated, in which view complainant apparently acquiesced, permitting defendant to expend his time, efforts, and money in developing and exploiting new inventions in the belief that they were his own. Held, that complainant was estopped to claim that the new inventions so made or developed were within the contract, but that it might be entitled to a specific enforcement in relation to an invention made previously and for which- an application for a patent was pending, and that it was entitled to a disclosure with respect thereto.</p> <p>3. Appeal — Rehearing.</p> <p>Where a decree was reversed on appeal, and the cause remanded, with directions for a specific discovery with respect to a certain invention made by defendant and the granting of such relief as might be warranted thereby, a rehearing was denied on an averment by appellee that the facts sufficiently appear from the record to enable the court to make a final adjudication, where no such claim was made on the hearing.</p>