870 FEDBEAL BEPOETBa, �2. Patent— AssiONMENT — Legal Titlb. �The assignment of the interest in an invention prior to the issue of a patent therefor, vests in the assignee the legal title to the prop- erty created thereby, upon recording the assignment thereof in the patent office, even though the patent may be issued to the patentee or assigner. �Frederic H. Betts, for plaintiff. �Charles F. Blake, for defendant. �Blatchfoed, C. J. This suit is brought for the alleged infringement by John C. Jewett & Sons, a joint stock asso- ciation, of letters patent No. 119,705, granted to Eugene A,, Heath, October 10, 1871, for an improvement in cuspi- dors. The patent was held to be valid by the decision of this court in the case of the same plaintif! against King, in Augast, 1879. In a prior suit in the circuit court for New Jersey it had been held by Judge Nixon to be invalid. That suit was brought by Linn Ingersoll, the then owner of the patent, against Mary Turner and William Turner, for in- fringement. In that suit it was held that the Heath inven- tion was anticipated by an invention made by William H. Topham, and for which he obtained a patent August 2, 1870. The date of the Heath invention was not carried back, in that suit, prior to the date of the Heath patent ; but in the King suit, in this court, it was shown that Heath applied for his patent before Topham made his invention. Various other defences were set up in the King case, and were over- ruled. In the present case some defences are brought for- ward which were not made in the King case, or in the Tur- ner case. �The principal new defence is the alleged prior invention of the same thing by Charles T. Weber, in Chicago. Before considering the date of the Weber invention it is necessary to fix the date of the Heath invention. In the King case the Heath invention was defined to be a metallic cuspidor, in form essentially a spheroidal body, with a conical mouth flar- ing outwards, formed of three metallic parts, the lower part being heavier than in ordinary, then-existing cuspidors, and extending up to the longest diameter of the spheroid, — the middle part and the upper part being lighter than in then- ��� �
