May, 1895, the said George C. La Due filed in the patent office of the United States an application praying for the granting and issuing of letters patent of the United States for the same; that, prior to the granting and issuing of any patent therefor, the said La Due did, by an instrument in writing, under his hand and seal, executed as required by law, assign and transfer to said complainant, the Fruit-Cleaning Company, all his right, title, and interest in and to said invention, and did by said assignment request the commissioner of patents to issue such patents to said complainant, the said Fruit-Cleaning Company, and that said assignment was in writing, and was filed in the patent office of the United States prior to the granting and issuing of any patent for said invention." Respondents further admit "that, after proceedings had and taken in the matter of said application, and on the 30th day of July, 1895, letters patent of the United States thereunder, dated on that day, and numbered 543,834, were granted, issued, and delivered by the government of the United States to said complainant, the Fruit-Cleaning Company." The respondents further admit "that said letters patent were issued in due form of law, under the seal of the patent office of the United States, and were signed by the secretary of the interior, and countersigned by the commissioner of patents of the United States, and that prior to the issuance thereof all proceedings were had and taken which were required by law to be had and taken prior to the issuance of letters patent for new and useful inventions." These admissions on the part of the respondents constitute all the facts necessary in this case to establish the complainant's title to the patent, and enable it to maintain this action for its infringement.

It is contended, however, that it appears from the complaint that the patent to the invention was issued to a co-partnership; that a copartnership has no legal capacity to take the legal title to a grant; and therefore the patent is void. But a patent right is an incorporeal kind of personal property (Shaw Relief Valve Co. v. City of New Bedford, 19 Fed. 753; Bradley v. Dull, Id. 913; Vose v. Singer, 4 Allen, 230; Machine Co. v. Featherstone, 147 U. S. 209, 222, 13 Sup. Ct. 283), and, in a certain sense, analogous to property in a share of stock (Hall, Pat. Est. § 14). The discoverer of a new and useful improvement is vested by law with an inchoate right to its exclusive use, which he may perfect and make absolute by securing a patent from the government in the manner provided by law. This right the inventor may, under the law, assign before the patent is issued, and request that the patent be is sued to the assignee. When the patent is issued, an exclusive right to the invention for the statutory period has been created and vested in the assignee. Gayler v. Wilder, 10 How. 477.

In Bloomer v. McQuewan, 14 How. 539, the supreme court, by Chief Justice Taney, said:

"The franchise which the patent grants consists altogether in the right to exclude every one from making, using, or vending the thing patented. This is all that he obtains by the patent."

In Jordan v. Overseers, 4 Ohio, 309, the supreme court of Ohio said: "This leads us to consider the nature and extent of such rights as accrue from letters patent for useful discoveries. Although the inventor had, at

all times, the right to enjoy the fruits of his own ingenuity in every lawful form of which its use was susceptible, yet before the enactment of the statute he had not the power of preventing others from participating in that enjoyment to the same extent with himself; so that, however the world might derive benefit from his labors, no profits ensued to himself. The sole operation of the statute is to enable him to prevent others from using the products of his labors except with his consent. But his own right of using it is not enlarged or affected."

The court of appeals of Kentucky, in Patterson v. Com., 11 Bush, 315, said:

"The right of the appellant to sell oil is not derived from the patent laws of congress. If no patent had been issued, the right to sell this character of property would exist, and the only benefit to be derived from the patent is that it excludes others from selling the same kind of oil for a limited period, unless authorized to do so by the patentee, with the additional right on the part of the latter to sell and transfer his patent right in the mode prescribed by the patent laws."

Section 4898 of the Revised Statutes of the United States provides that:

"Every patent or any interest therein shall be assignable in law, by an Instrument in writing; and the patentee or his assigns or legal representatives may in like manner grant and convey an exclusive right under his patent to the whole or any specified part of the United States."

An oral agreement for the sale or assignment of the right to obtain a patent is not invalid; if sufficiently proved, it can be specifically enforced in equity. Somerby v. Buntin, 118 Mass. 279; Dalzell v. Manufacturing Co., 149 U. S. 315, 320, 13 Sup. Ct. 886.

The technical rules that would render void a grant of real property are manifestly inapplicable to the right of property in an invention confirmed by a patent. It is common knowledge that a partnership may acquire the title to an invention in the name of the partnership after the patent has been issued, in the same manner as it would acquire the title to any other personal property, and there does not appear to be any good reason why it may not do so before the patent has been issued. The grant in the patent of an exclusive right does not change the character of the property. A conveyance of personal property to a partnership in its firm name conveys the title, and the property becomes partnership property. But, conceding that resort should be had to the law relating to grants of real estate for the purpose of defining and construing rights secured under letters patent for an invention, we do not find that under that law the patent is void because the grant of an exclusive right has been made to a co-partnership.

In Kelley v. Bourne, 15 Or. 476, 484, 16 Pac. 40, it was held that a deed conveying real estate to a partnership by its firm name, if ineffectual to transfer the legal title, was valid and binding as a contract, and created an equitable estate in the land described.

In Dunlap v. Green, 8 C. C. A. 600, 60 Fed. 242, the action was trespass to try title. In plaintiff's chain of title was a deed to a partnership by the firm name of Darcy & Wheeler. It was held that:

"A deed is void which does not in some way point out the grantor and grantee. The usual method of describing a person is by giving his name in full. But this is not the only method. Any other description would suffice which would distinguish him from others; as, for example, where one is 94 F.-54

described by his office or by his relation to other persons. 5 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 432, and cases there cited. The office of a name at common law is merely to identify, and for that purpose the description in the deed objected to seems to be sufficient. If evidence should develop that there was more than one Wheeler in the city of New Orleans, state of Louisiana, or more than one firm of Darcy & Wheeler in said city, it would merely be a case of latent ambiguity, arising from extraneous evidence, capable of being removed, and in every such case of doubt the true party may be shown by parol."

The doctrine of these two cases, applied to the grant in the present case, would alone be sufficient to dispose of the respondents' objection to the complainant's title to the patent in suit.

The subject-matter in controversy is a mechanism for removing the seed of fruit from the pulp or body thereof, especially dried fruit, such as raisins, currants, etc., consisting mainly of a cylinder built up of a series of toothed disks, spaced with smaller plain disks, and clamped upon a shaft or mandrel, the space between the toothed disks and between the several teeth of each disk being less than the diameter of a raisin seed; three cylinders, having elastic sur faces formed of bristles, arranged adjacent to the toothed cylin der, and progressively closer to it; suitable devices for the feeding of the fruit between the first of these rolls and the toothed cylin der, and for the carrying of the fruit thence around and under the other bristle-covered rolls, which rolls, in turn, impale the fruit upon the surface points or teeth, and press the fruit until the skin is ruptured and the seeds thrust out; a series of stripping wires, arranged tangentially in the grooves between the disks of the toothed cylinder, which serve to push the fruit off from the teeth; and cleaning blades, arranged in these grooves, for the purpose of wiping off from the teeth the free pulp exuding from the fruit and adhering to the teeth. The accompanying drawings illustrate the details of construction, and are explained as follows:

"Fig. 1 is a central vertical longitudinal section of a machine embodying my improvements. Fig. 2 is an enlarged detailed cross section of the fruitcarrying or impaling roll, taken between the circular plates composing the same. Fig. 3 is a lengthwise detail section of said roll, looking from the left hand of Fig. 2. Fig. 4 is an enlarged detailed view of the fruit-stripping devices, as viewed in the direction of the upper arrow of Fig. 2. Fig. 5 is a similar detail view of the carrier roll cleaning blades. Fig. 6 is an enlarged detailed section, similar to Fig. 1, of the carrying roll, showing certain modifications, to be hereinafter more fully described.

"Referring to the views in detail, 1 represents the general framework of the machine; 2 represents, as a whole, the fruit-carrying roll or the surface upon which the fruit is impaled for the purpose of removing the seed therefrom. This roll is driven by belt, 3, and it in turn drives the endless feeding belt, 4, which runs along the bottom of trough, 5, into which the fruit is fed. as from the spout, 6; 7 being a long spout inclined from the vertical, which delivers the fruit upon the carrier roll. The belt, 4, acts to agitate and separate the raisins, and to deliver the same singly, or in a single layer, to the delivery trough, 7, down which they fall upon the carrier roll, and are thereby separated, and the movement of the roll keeps them in motion, so that they will not stick together, but will be carried forward singly or in a single layer.

"The carrier roll, 2, is composed of toothed plates, 8, alternating with spacing plates, 9, which are properly bound together and fixed to the shaft of the roll, 10, the roll being supported in suitable journals on the frame of the machine. The teeth, 11, of the alternate plates of this roll, are perfectly

square in cross section, and the length thereof is such as conforms to the thickness of the fruit to be operated upon, while the space between any two adjacent teeth is less than, or at least does not exceed, the average smaller diameter of the seed of the fruit,

"12 is a removable brush roll, journaled in brackets or other like supports fixed to the machine, and which roll is the impaling roll, or the one which forces the fruit upon the teeth of the carrier, the roll being so adjusted relatively to the fruit-carrier surface, and the character of its surface of fiber. bristles, or other yielding substance being such, that the fruit is impaled

upon the teeth without being at least to any essential extent ruptured by the action of the roll. 13 is a similar roll, similarly mounted, but adjusted somewhat nearer to the carrier surface, and the bristles or operative surface of this roll may be stiffer or less yielding than that of the roll 12. The function of this roll is to perforate the skin of the fruit lying over the seeds of the impaled fruit, preliminary to the unimpaled portion of the fruit being pushed from off the seeds. 14 is a similar roll, similarly supported on the frame, the brush or yielding surface of which is adapted to engage the perforated skin of the fruit, and press the same down upon the main body of the fruit; thus leaving the seeds upon points of the carrier surface, but stripped of the skin and pulp of the fruit. These rolls are driven by contact with the surface of the carrier roll, or they may be driven by belting,-such, for example, as is seen at 15, in Fig. 6. Their peripheral speed, however, should be the same as that of the surface of the carrier roll.

"16 indicates a frame, and a series of longitudinal wires carried thereby. under tension, and located at different distances, or at distances whereby the first wire 17 (Fig. 2) is at a distance from the carrier surface somewhat less than the average thickness of the fruit seed, while the intermediate wires are