Solomons v. United States
| Decision Date | 08 December 1890 |
| Citation | 34 L.Ed. 667,11 S.Ct. 88,137 U.S. 342 |
| Parties | SOLOMONS v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
[Statement of Case from pages 342-345 intentionally omitted] Lewis Abraham and B. F. Butler, for appellant.
Sol. Gen. Taft, for the United States.
Justice BREWER, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
The case presented by the foregoing facts is one not free from difficulties. The government has used the invention of Mr. Clark, and has profited by such use. It was an invention of value. The claimant and appellant is the owner of such patent, and has never consented to its use by the government. From these facts, standing alone, an obligation on the part of the government to pay naturally arises. The government has no more power to appropriate a man's property invested in a patent than it has to take his property invested in real estate; nor does the mere fact that an inventor is, at the time of his invention, in the employ of the government transfer to it any title to or interest therein. An employe, performing all the duties assigned to him in his department of service, may exercise his inventive faculties in any direction he chooses, with the assurance that whatever invention he may thus conceive and perfect is his individual property. There is no difference between the government and any other employer in this respect. But this general rule is subject to these limitations: If one is employed to devise or perfect an instrument, or a means for accomplishing a prescribed result, he cannot, after successfully accomplishing the work for which he was employed, plead title thereto as against his employer. That which he has been employed and paid to accomplish becomes, when accomplished, the property of his employer. Whatever rights as an individual he may have had in and to his inventive powers, and that which they are able to accomplish, he has sold in advance to his employer. So, also, when one is in the employ of another in a certain line of work, and devises an improved method or instrument for doing that work, and uses the property of his employer and the services of other employes to develop and put in practicable form his invention, and explicitly assents to the use by his employer of such invention, a jury, or a court, trying the facts, is warranted in finding that he has so far recognized the obligations of service flowing from his employment and the benefits resulting from his use of the property, and the assistance of the co-employes, of his employer, as to have given to such employer an irrevocable license to use such invention. The case of McClurg v. Kingsland, 1 How. 202, is in point. In that case was...
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In re Access Cardiosystems, Inc., Bankruptcy No. 05-40809.
...LLC v. Slagter (In re Stonecraft, LLC), 322 B.R. 623, 630 (Bankr.S.D.Miss.2005); see also Solomons v. United States, 137 U.S. 342, 346, 26 Ct.Cl. 620, 11 S.Ct. 88, 34 L.Ed. 667 (1890); Cahill v. Regan, 5 N.Y.2d 292, 184 N.Y.S.2d 348, 157 N.E.2d 505, 508 (N.Y. 1959). If, however, an employee......
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...officials performing the functions and duties of their offices constitutes government property. Cf. Solomons v. United States , 137 U.S. 342, 346–48, 11 S.Ct. 88, 34 L.Ed. 667 (1890) (holding that intellectual property created by government employee in the course of his official duties cons......
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...[FN14]. See, e.g. White's Electronics Inc. v. Teknetics Inc., 667 P. 2d 68 (Or. App. 1984). [FN15]. In Solomons v. United States, 137 U.S. 342 (1890), the Court gave the following as the underlying rationale: If one is employed to devise or perfect an instrument, or a means for accomplishin......
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...its exclusive use, which he may perfect and make absolute by proceeding in the manner which the law requires"); Solomons v. United States, 137 U.S. 342, 346, 11 S. Ct. 88, 34 L.Ed. 667 (1890) ("whatever invention [an inventor] may thus conceive and perfect is his individual property")).3. B......
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...(1945)). 23. Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469, 496-97 (2005). 24. Sharp, supra note 1, at 1250 (quoting Solomons v. United States, 137 U.S. 342, 346 25. 467 U.S. 986 (1984). 26. Sharp, supra note 1, at 1249-54. 27. 524 U.S. 156, 164 (1998). 28. Sharp, supra note 1, at 1252. 29. Id. ......