these facts will justify a presumption of a license to use the invention. M' Clurg and others v. Kingsland and others, 1 Howard, 202. 421. Such an unmolested and notorious use of the invention prior to the application for a patent, will bring the case within the provisions of the 7th section of the act of 1839, c. 88. Ibid. 422. The assignees of a patent right take it subject to the legal consequences of the previous acts of the patentee. 423. The patentee need not prove that he has hawked his patented article about for a market, and that he has tried to sell it to any person. Those seeking to defeat the patent must prove that the patentee neglected or refused to sell for reasonable prices, when application was made to him. By Judges Nelson and Betts, in Benjamin et al. v. Lowlen et als., U. S. C. C. Southern District of New York, April term, 1846. 424. The first inventor cannot acquire a good title to a patent if he suffer the thing invented to go into public use, or to be publicly sold for use, before he makes application for a patent. Earle v. Page, 6 N. Hamp. 477. X. Of assignments of letters patent and patent rights. 425. A patentee of friction matches, by a deed under seal, undertook as follows: "To grant, bargain, sell, convey, assign, and transfer to B, his executors, administrators, and assigns, the right and privilege, hereinafter mentioned, of making, using, and selling the friction matches," patented, and to have and to hold "the right and privilege of manufacturing the said matches, and to employ in and about the same six persons, and no more, and to vend the said matches in any part of the United States." It was held, that this was a license or authority from the patentee, and need not be recorded in the Patent Office, under the Patent act of 1836, ch. 357, sec. 11. Brooks v. Byam, 2 Story, 525. 426. A license need not be recorded in the Patent Office, unless there be some positive provision of the Patent act, which renders it an indispensable prerequisite to its validity. Ibid. 427. The recording within three months, according to the statute, is merely directory; and any subsequent recording of an assignment will be sufficient to pass the title to the assignee, except as to intermediate bona fide purchasers, without notice. Ibid. 428. The Patent act of 1826, ch. 357, sec. 11, provides for the recording of three kinds of assignments, and of no others: first, an assignment of the whole patent; secondly, an assignment of any undivided part thereof; and, thirdly, a grant or conveyance of the exclusive right under the patent within any specified part of the United States. Ibid. 429. It was held, that the right granted by the above deed was a license or authority, coupled with an interest in the execution, to the grantee and six persons to be employed by him in making matches; that the right was an entirety, incapable of being apportioned or divided among different persons; that, therefore, an assignment by B, of a right to make as many matches as one person could roll up, was void. Ibid. 430. Quare, if the license is not such a personal privilege, that the entirety cannot be assigned, notwithstanding it was given to B, and his assigns. Ibid. 431. The act of 1836, ch. 357, sec. 11, relating to the recording of assignments of patents, is merely directory, for the protection of bona fide purchasers without notice, and does not require the recording of an assignment within three months, as a prerequisite to its validity. Pitts v. Whitman, 2 Story, 609. 432. A contract may be made to convey a future invention, as well as a past one, and for any improvement or maturing of a past one. Nesmith v. Calvert, 1 Woodbury, 34. 433. Under the act of 1836, the patentee may assign any part of his right. Boyd v. M'Alpen, 3 McLean, 427. 434. The assignment must be recorded. Ibid. 435. If not recorded, a subsequent assignee, without notice, would hold. Ibid. 436. A vendor of a patent right, in the bill of sale, described the machine thus: "One machine for cutting, making, and manufacturing combs, like the machines which I use and improve, and such as I have a patent right for." It was held, that this latter clause did not amount to a covenant on the part of the vendor that he had a valid patent right. Bull v. Pratt, 1 Conn. 342. |