Heywood-Wakefield Co. v. Small

96 F.2d 496, 37 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 363, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 3508

• Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
• Decided: April 14, 1938
• Docket: 3312
• Status: Published

Opinions

BINGHAM, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above),

The principal question raised by the defendant’s motion to vacate the interlocutory injunction and to dismiss the case is whether the plaintiff, Small, and the Coach & Car Equipment ■ Corporation, the intervening plaintiff, can maintain this suit for infringement. The determination of this question depends upon at least two of three subsidiary questions: (1) Whether the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation acquired a valid title to the patent under the so-called license contract of December 15, 1935, so that it would be entitled to damages for the defendant’s infringement of the patent after that date; and, if it did, (2) whether Small-acquired title to the patent when it issued to him on October 6, 1931, and can maintain this suit for damages for the defendant’s infringement of the patent after that date and down to December 15, 1935, when the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation acquired title to the patent; and (3) if the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation did not acquire title to the patent, then whether he can maintain the suit for damages for the entire period of the defendant’s infringement.

As to the question whether the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation acquired a valid title under the so-called license contract, it appears that on December 15, 1935, the date of that contract, Small had, at least, the apparent legal title to the patent; that it had issued to him from the Patent Office in his name; that the records in the Patent Office disclosed no record of an assignment of the patent from him; and that the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation paid him a substantial consideration, in good faith and without knowledge or notice, constructive or otherwise, of any defect in his title. Burck v. Taylor, 152 U.S. 634, 653, 14 S.Ct. 696, 38 L.Ed. 578; In re Atlantic Beach Corp., D.C., 244 Fed. 828; Dunn v. New York, 205 N.Y. 342, 98 N.E. 495; United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 333, 26 S.Ct. 282, 50 L.Ed. 499; 46 C.J. p. 550, § 46; 20 Ruling Case Law, p. 342, § 3. These facts being established, and we think they are, the legal title to the patent became vested in the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation, if the so-called license contract was an assignment within the meaning of the patent law.

In that contract Small granted to the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation the exclusive right under the patent to make, use, and vend the invention during the entire term of the patent; and, as the grant to the patentee was the right to make, use, and vend the invention throughout the United States and the territories thereof, the exclusive right under the patent not being limited in the grant to any particular portion of the United States, and the grant being of the entire monopoly, the so-called license contract was an assignment and not a license, and vested the title to the entire patent in the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation. This being so, the corporation, having been allowed to intervene as a party plaintiff, may recover of the defendant such damages as it sustained from the date of its acquisition of the title to the patent (December 15, 1935) until the defendant ceased its infringement, sub j ect to payments to Small as hereafter defined. Waterman v. Mackenzie, 138 U.S. 252, 255, 11 S.Ct. 334, 34 L.Ed. 923; Crown Die & Tool Co. v. Nye Tool & Machine Works, 261 U.S. 24, 37, 38, 43 S.Ct. 254, 257, 67 L.Ed. 516; Krentler-Arnold Hinge Last Co. v. Leman, 1 Cir., 13 F.2d 796, 799, 802; Littlefield v. Perry, 21 Wall. 205, 220, 22 L.Ed. 577. In the last two cases the consideration for the license or assignment was an agreement to pay royalties.

As to whether Small acquired such a title to the patent when it issued to him on October 6, 1931, that he can maintain this suit for damages for the defendant’s infringement from that date to December 15, when the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation acquired title, it appears that Small was the inventor of the car-seat base; that he duly applied for a patent for his invention; and that the records in the Patent Office disclose no record of an assignment of his application before the patent issued to him or at any time. Under such circumstances, the statutes regulating the issuing of patents, Rev.St. §§ 4883, 4884, 4895, 4896, 4898 and 4897, as amended, 35 U.S.C.A. §§ 39, 40, 44, 46, 47, and § 38, are held to require that the patent issue to the inventor, the patentee, and that he takes the legal title to the patent when issued. But that, where the inventor assigns his application in writing and records the same, and the patent later issues to the patentee, the title to the patent vests in the assignee, without a further assignment. Gayler v. Wilder, 10 How. 477, 481, 491, 492, 493, 13 L.Ed. 504. And that, if no record of the assignment is made until after the patent issues, the title to the patent does not vest in the assignee until after the assignment is recorded. United States Stamping Co. v. Jewett, C.C., 7 F. 869, 877, 878.

In Crown Die & Tool Co. v. Nye Tool & Machine Works, 261 U.S. 24, at page 40, 43 S.Ct. 254, 258, 67 L.Ed. 516, Chief Justice Taft, in delivering the opinion of the court, said:

“Patent property is the creature of statute law and its incidents are equally so and depend upon the construction to be given to the statutes creating it and them, in view of the policy of Congress in their enactment. This is shown by the opinion of this Court in Waterman v. Mackenzie, 138 U.S. 252, 11 S.Ct. 334, 34 L.Ed. 923, already cited, and in the line of authorities followed therein. It is not safe, therefore, in dealing with a transfer of rights under the patent law to follow implicitly the rules governing a transfer of rights in a chose in action at common law. As Chief Justice Taney said in Gayler v. Wilder, 10 How. 477, 494 (13 L.) : ‘The monopoly did not exist at common law, and the rights, therefore, which may be exercised under it cannot be regulated by the rules of the common law. It is created by the act of Congress; and no rights can be acquired in it unless authorized by statute, and in the manner the statute prescribes.’ ”

In Gayler v. Wilder, 10 How. 477, 481, 491, 492, 493, 13 L.Ed. 504, a written assignment was made and recorded in the Patent Office before the patent issued and contained a request that the patent issue to the assignee. It was issued to the patentee. The defendant contended that the. assignment did not convey to the assignee the legal title to the monopoly subsequently conferred by the patent. The court, in that case, among other things, said:

“The act of 1836 declares that every patent shall be assignable in law, and that the assignment must be in writing, and recorded within the time specified. But the thing to be assigned * * * is the monopoly which the grant [the patent] confers: the right of property which it creates. And when the party has acquired an inchoate right to it, and the power to make that right perfect and absolute' at his pleasure, the assignment of his whole interest, whether executed before or after the patent issued, is equally within the provisions of the act of Congress.”

And held: “that, when the patent issued to him [the patentee], the legal right to the monopoly and property it created was, by operation of the assignment then on record, vested in Enos Wilder [the assignee].”

. In United States Stamping Co. v. Jewett, C.C., 7 F. 869, 877, 878, it appeared that the inventor filed his application for a patent June 3, 1871; that on July 20, 1871, he made an assignment of it to Heath & Smith Manufacturing Company; that the patent issued October 10, 1871, but the assignment was not recorded until November 18, 1871. And Judge Blatchford, then a circuit judge, but later a justice of the Supreme Court, held that the title to the patent did not vest in the assignee, the Heath & Smith Manufacturing Company, on the issuing of the patent, but only after the assignment had been recorded.

These cases demonstrate that, under the patent statutes regulating the assignment of an application for a patent, the recording of the assignment in the Patent Office is made one of the essential requirements of the assignment to vest the title to the patent in the assignee.

When the patent issued to Small, there being no record in the Patent Office of his voluntary assignment in bankruptcy, the estate being closed and no trustee in existence in whom the title to the patent could vest, Small took the legal title and ownership of the patent, charged with an equitable lien, or in trust, by virtue of section 70 of the Bankruptcy Act, as amended, by Act May 27, 1926, 11 U.S.C.A. § 110, and otherwise, to satisfy the claims of creditors who had proved them and to pay the expenses of administering the bankruptcy estate, with the right to hold any balance, for himself. He did not take the title as a mere conduit to pass it on to the trustee in bankruptcy, for there was no trustee in existence. Furthermore, if the recording of the voluntary assignment be regarded as nonessential to the vesting of the title in an assignee, as there was here no assignee or trustee in existence when the patent issued in whom the legal'title could vest, and the bankrupt estate was closed, equity, like nature, abhorring a vacuum, leaves the legal title in Small where it finds it, charged with an equitable lien, or in trust, for the purposes above stated.

In Mills Novelty Co. v. Monarch Tool & Mfg. Co., 6 Cir., 49 F.2d 28, the situation was much the same as in the case now before us, so far as concerns the transfer of title to an application for a patent by an assignment in bankruptcy, except that the assignment in that case was an involuntary and not a voluntary one. There it appeared that Schoen and Lesley had made an invention and filed a joint application for a patent on December 16, 1910; that on April 14, 1915, and before the patent issued, Schoen was adjudged an involuntary bankrupt, and filed his schedule of personal property assets, in which, under the heading “Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks, etc.,” he said: “None”; that within a year after adjudication (before April 14, 1916), the bankruptcy proceedings were closed, and the court assumed as a fact that at about the same ■time the trustee was discharged; that, thereafter, on September 19, 1916, the patent issued jointly to Schoen and Lesley; that in 1926, the patentees brought suit against the defendant' for infringement; "that in 1929, and after the suit had been pending for three years, Schoen and Lesley ■sold the patent to the plaintiff, the Mills Novelty Company, presumably with all their rights to damages; and that this company became the plaintiff in the suit by supplemental bill.

It was held that the plaintiff, which had purchased the title of Schoen and Lesley to the patent for a valuable consideration, in good faith, and without notice of any defect, had acquired a good title and could maintain the suit for infringement and accounting. It is there pointed out that if the title to Schoen’s one-half undivided interest in the patent application was in the trustee without his knowledge, upon the closing of the estate and his discharge it could not remain in him for “he is dead,” and it did not remain in the bankruptcy court; that the theory most reasonable for solving the situation was “that the failure to schedule or otherwise give notice to the trustee would extend the reasonable time within which he or those entitled to do so might elect whether the title should be taken over for the benefit of the bankrupt estate”; that if the right of election survived, the creditors might, within a reasonable time, apply to reopen the estate and demand the property; that such reasonable time would start to run when they were chargeable with notice that the patent application existed at the time of the bankruptcy proceedings; that the record made in the Patent Office, at the time the'patent issued, showing that, during the bankruptcy proceedings there was a pending application, was notice to the whole public, including the creditors; that if the creditors, within a reasonable time after such notice, failed to proceed to get control of the patent, the title would remain where it was, that is, in Schoen and Lesley, the copatentees; that a delay of thirteen years, if unexplained, would be unreasonable; and that “the suggestion that there might .be some possible outside interest is one which a court of equity ought not to accept from a mere trespasser for the sake of enabling the trespasser to avoid the results of his unlawful action.” In other words, that the defendant’s suggestion of the possible existence of an enforcible right in the creditors, equitable or otherwise, he being a trespasser, was not sufficient to interrupt the prosecution of a suit at his request and for his benefit.

Although that case arose prior to the amendment of section 70 in 1926, 11 U.S.C. A. § 110 and note, the assumption upon which the decision was based — that the title to Schoen’s one-half common interest in the application was in the trustee without his knowledge up until the closing of the estate — is as broad and comprehensive, as any right or title would be that is conferred upon a trustee by the amendment of 1926. The amendment of section 70, 11 U.S.C.A. § 110, vesting in the trustee the title of the bankrupt to an application for a patent, is but a restatement of the law as it existed prior to the amendment, for at common law the inventor had a property right in his invention and, on filing an application, he had, under the patent statutes, the inchoate right to the monopoly to be granted; and there can be little if any doubt but that a property right in an application passed to the trustee in bankruptcy prior to the amendment of 1926.

Without further discussion of this branch of the case we are of the opinion that the title to the patent, from its issuance to the patentee down to the assignment to the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation, was in Small, charged with an equitable lien or held in trust for the benefit of creditors who had proved their claims, provided they asserted their rights within a reasonable time after being charged with notice of the pendency of the application.

It necessarily follows from what has been said that Small not only had the right, but that it was his duty to protect the property in the patent, the legal title to which was in him, by bringing this suit for damages and injunction against the defendant. The Coach & Car Equipment Corporation, however, having acquired the legal title to the patent in 1935, was properly allowed to intervene as a plaintiff in the case and recover the damages occasioned by the defendant’s infringement, since it acquired title to the patent, free from any claim of the creditors; but having intervened in and availed itself of the benefits arising from Small’s prosecution of the suit, it is subject to certain rights of his hereafter mentioned. And Small, being the owner of the title down to that time, during which period the defendant also infringed the patent, may recover the damages thus occasioned (Moore v. Marsh, 7 Wall. 515, 19 L.Ed. 37; Crown Die & Tool Co. v. Nye Tool & Machine Works, 261 U.S. 24, at pages 41, 42, 43 S.Ct. 254, 258, 67 L.Ed. 516; Krentler-Arnold Hinge Last Co. v. Leman, 1 Cir., 13 F.2d 796, at page 803), subject to the right of a legally appointed new trustee (6 Remington on Bankruptcy, p. 448, § 2980; 1 Collier on Bankruptcy, p. 172, 1923 Ed.), to appear in the cause and establish whatever rights creditors, who have duly proved their claims (6 Remington, § 2984), may have in the fund recovered by Small, provided he can show that such creditors, by their delay for more than six years after they were charged with notice of the Patent Office record, have not unreasonably delayed in the assertion of their claims. Their right to intervene in this case is, under the facts here disclosed, necessarily limited to the satisfaction of their claims out of those damages, the title to the patent being now in the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation. We think it is clear that the reopening of a closed case in bankruptcy rests in the sound judicial discretion of the District Judge and an application for that purpose should be made to him and not to the referee to whom the case was originally re-, ferred; that the latter’s authority under the original order of reference ceased after he made his report and the case was closed; and that if the District Judge orders the case reopened, he should also enter an order re-referring the case.to a referee, who should call a new meeting of the creditors for the appointment of a new trustee. In re Rochester Sanitarium & Baths Co., 2 Cir., 222 F. 22, 23, 26, 27; In re Newton, 8 Cir., 107 F. 429, 431; 6 Remington, § 2980; 1 Collier, p. 172.

It is contended by the defendant that section 70 of the Bankruptcy Act, as amended in 1926, 11 U.S.C.A. § 110, required Small to include his application for a patent as an asset in his list of assets. But that section neither before nor after its amendment required the inclusion of an application as an asset in the list of assets, and the forms prescribed by the Supreme Court for listing assets, neither befóte, nor after the amendment, contained a designation calling for the listing of an application as an asset. But section 7, subd. 8, as amended, 11 U.S. C.A. § 25(8), required the bankrupt to file a.schedule of his property, and if an application for a patent is property, which we think it is, it being capable of being assigned and will survive to the applicant’s executor or administrator, the forms, for listing assets properly should be changed to- in-' elude such an asset. If this were done it would avoid misleading.

The defendant further contends that Small was guilty of fraud in not listing the application as an asset, although the forms did not require it. It is difficult to see how the defendant can raise the question; and if a legally appointed new trustee might do so, we think that, under the facts here existing, it could avail him nothing over and above what he is otherwise authorized to assert, for the legal title to the patent is the property of the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation, and the only assets involved in this suit in which he could assert a right by being allowed to intervene are the damages Small may recover. If the omission to list was fraudulent as to his creditors, it can avail the defendant nothing. Being such it would not confer upon the defendant the right to damage property the title to which was in Small, nor to defeat an action brought against it for damages, in which Small’s creditors have an equity, if they have not lost it through unreasonable delay.

We think, however, that the permanent injunction issued in this case went too far; that under the so-called license or assignment, granting the exclusive right to manufacture, use, and sell, the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation may employ anyone it sees fit to manufacture the patented article or to use or sell it, and that, while it could not, under a nontransferable contract, such as exists here, grant a sublicense to anyone, it had a right to employ the defendant to manufacture the revolving car-seat bases under the Small patent and to sell them, the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation to account to the assignor for all royalties, whether the articles were manufactured, sold, or used by it or by its agent. The injunction issued by the 'District Court must be modified in this respect.

Equity requires that the suit against the defendant should be retained for the assessment of damages; that the so-called license or assignment to the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation should stand as valid and binding; that any damages recovered against the defendant since the date of the execution of the assignment or license contract, after adjustment between the assignor and assignee of the expenses of the suit, be for the benefit of the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation; and that the damages resulting from the infringement of the patent prior to the assignment to the Coach & Car Equipment Corporation be Small’s, subject to any claim a legally appointed new trustee may be able to establish in this suit for the benefit of the creditors, if he desires to intervene and establish a right in them.

The denial of the District Court of the motion of the defendant to vacate the interlocutory decree is affirmed, but the permanent injunction must be modified to conform to this opinion.

The case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion, with costs to the plaintiffs-appellees in this court.