Case No. 14,261.

TURNER v. JOHNSON et al.

[2 Cranch, C. C. 287;¹ 1 Fish. Pat. Rep. 4.]

Circuit Court, District of Columbia.

April Term, 1822.

PATENTS—IMPROVEMENTS—NOTES—FAILURE OF CONSIDERATION.

If a person who has made an improvement upon a machine, already patented by another, take out a patent for the whole improved machine, the patent is void; and if knowingly sold as a valid patent, the vendor cannot recover upon a note given for the purchase-money.

Assumpsit, on a promissory note for five hundred dollars [given as part consideration for the purchase of a right to certain letters patent].² [See Case No. 14,256.]

Mr. Wiley, for plaintiff [Robert Turner].

Key & Dunlop, for defendants [Johnson & Green].

THE COURT (nem. con.) instructed the jury, at the prayer of the defendants' counsel, “that if they believed from the evidence that the plaintiff sold to the defendant a patent right including an original invention which was known to the plaintiff to have been previously patented to another, together with his, the plaintiff's improvement on such original invention, for which improvement only the plaintiff was entitled to a patent, and that the defendant bought such patent right ignorant of the original invention having been previously patented to another, and with a belief that he would have an exclusive right to the whole machine, and that the note in question was given as part consideration of such purchase, then it was a fraud on the defendants, and the note void in law.”

Verdict for defendant.

¹ [Reported by Hon. William Cranch, Chief Judge.]

² [From 1 Fish. Pat. Rep. 4.]

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