Sendelbach v. Gillette

Citations

• 22 App. D.C. 168
• 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 5521

Syllabus

<p>Patents; Interference; Burden of Proof; Employer and Employee; Presumptions.</p> <p>1. Not only is the burden of proof upon the applicant who is in interference with a prior patentee, but that burden can only be discharged by his establishing by proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he is the real prior inventor of the structure of the issue, and thus clearly overcoming the patented claim of his rival.</p> <p>2. If the work of one employed by another embodies invention as distinguished from mechanical skill, its results cannot be successfully claimed by the employer, except where there has been an agreement that such completed invention, or the patent therefor, shall issue for the benefit of the employer.</p> <p>3. An inventor cannot be deprived of the right to his invention, where he has used due diligence in the assertion of his right, except by express contract, or by a course of conduct that fairly gives rise to an implication of an intention to part with or dispose of the right; and a presumption to that effect is not lightly to be made.</p> <p>4. In an interference involving an improvement in wheel-hubs, between an applicant and a prior patentee, where the applicant, who had previously obtained two patents for roller bearings adjustable to hubs of wheels, claimed that he communicated the invention of the issue to the patentee, who was the vice-president of a wheel company, for the purpose of having the company construct some wheels embodying his invention, the testimony examined and reviewed and, reversing the decision of the Commissioner of Patents, held insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the applicant disclosed his invention to the patentee.</p> <p>5. The action of the Patent Office in granting a patent is presumptively correct, and a charge by a rival inventor that the patentee fraudulently and surreptitiously obtained it can only be sustained by the clearest and most undoubted proof.</p> <p>6. While a delay of over two years in ma