Dable Grain Shovel Co. v. Flint
Cases that cite this one
15 later published cases cite this decision.
- Fulmer v. United States (United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama 1949)
- Holland v. General Motors Corporation (District Court, W.D. New York 1947)
- Lexmark International, Inc. v. Impression Products, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2016)
- Jones v. Ulrich (Ill. App. Ct. 1950)
- United States v. Mitchell (District Court, W.D. Missouri 1949)
- Sadler v. W. S. Dickey Clay Mfg. Co. (District Court, W.D. Missouri 1947)
- Tin Decorating Co. of Baltimore v. Metal Package Corp. (District Court, S.D. New York 1928)
- Patton v. United States (Court of Claims 1948)
- Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. City and County of San Francisco (Supreme Court of the United States 1924)
- Robertson v. United States ex rel. Baldwin Co. (D.C. Cir. 1923)
- Columbia & N. R. R. v. Chandler (9th Cir. 1917)
- Macbeth-Evans Glass Co. v. General Electric Co. (6th Cir. 1917)
- Federal Const. Co. v. Park Improvement Co. (U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Wisconsin 1908)
- Lexmark International, Inc. v. Impression Products, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2016)
- Poirier v. Bradford (Minn. 1912)
This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.
Opinion
after stating the case as above reported, delivered the opinion of the court.
The fourth plea is based upon section 7 of the act of March 3, 1839, c. 88, (in force when the patents were granted,) providing that “every person or corporation, who has or shall have purchased or constructed any newly invented machine,
manufacture or composition of matter, prior to the application by the inventor and discoverer for a patent, shall be held to possess the right to. use, and vend to others to be used, the specific machine, . manufacture or composition of matter so made or purchased, without liability therefor to the inventor or any other person interested in such invention.” 5 Stat. 354. In the later statutes, this provision has been reenacted with the qualification that the machine, manufacture, or composition of matter must have been purchased from the inventor, or constructed with his knowledge and consent. Act of July 8, 1870, c. 230, § 37, 16 Stat. 203; Rev. Stat. § 4899.
It is agreed that the machines in question were constructed and put in use in the defendants’ grain elevators by the inventor himself, and with his knowledge and consent, while he was *43 in their employment as superintendent of machinery, and before his application for either patent. According to the express terms of the statute, therefore, the defendants had the right to continue to use these specific machines without paying any compensation to him or his assigns, whether asked for or not.
To the argument of the plaintiff’s counsel, that the statute is unconstitutional as depriving the inventor of his property without compensation, there is a twofold answer: The patentee has no exclusive iright of property in his invention, except under and by virtue of the statutes securing it to him, and according to the regulations and restrictions of. those statutes.' Gayler v. Wilder, 10. How. 477, 493; Brown v. Duchesne, 19 How. 183, 195; Marsh v. Nichols, 128 U. S. 605, 612. And these machines have been set free from his monoooly by his own act, consent and permission. Wade v. Metcalf, 129 U. S. 202.
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.