FAT-RUMPED SHEEP.
The steinbock and the chamois, which live in the highest mountains, are still found, but other breeds, such as the argalis, which inhabited the foot hills and the high table lands, have disappeared, as Europe has become more thickly populated. We know that they formerly lived there, by the fossil remains of the oldest Pliocene in England (Ovis Savinii Newton), of the caves of bones near Stramberg in Moravia (Ovis argaloides Nehring), and of the diluvial strata near Puy-de-Dôme Mountain in the south of France (Ovis antiqua Pommerol).
For the above and the accompanying illustrations we are indebted to Daheim.
[Continued from SUPPLEMENT, No. 1172, page 18756.]
PATENTS.[1]
By JAMES W. SEE, Hamilton, Ohio, Member of the Society.
EMPLOYERS' RIGHTS.
An invention, to be patented, must be applied for by the actual inventor, and in the absence of acts constituting a transfer, the patent, and all legal ownership in it, and all rights under it, go exclusively to the inventor. In the absence of express or implied contract, a mere employer of the inventor has no rights under the patent. Only contracts or assignments give to the employer, or to anyone else, a license or a partial or entire ownership in the patent. The equity of this may be appreciated by examples. A journeyman carpenter invents an improvement in chronometer escapements and patents it. The man who owns the carpenter shop has no shadow of claim on or under this patent. Again, the carpenter invents and patents an improvement in jack planes. The shop owner has no rights in or under the patent. Again, the carpenter invents an improvement in window frames, and the shop owner has no rights. He has no right even to make the patented window frame without license. The shop owner, in merely employing the carpenter, acquires no rights to the carpenter's patented inventions. But there are cases in which an implied license would go to the shop owner. For instance, if the carpenter was employed on the mutual understanding that he was particularly ingenious in devising carpenter work, and capable of improving upon the products of the shop; and if in the course of his work he devised a new and patentable window frame, and developed it in connection with his employment and at the expense of his employer; and if the new frames were made by the employer without protest from the carpenter, the carpenter could, of course, patent the new frame, but he could not oust the employer in his right to continue making the invention, for it would be held that the employer had acquired an implied license.
If he could not use it, then he would not be getting the very advantage for which he employed this particular carpenter, and if he did get that right, he would be getting all that he employed the carpenter for, and that right would not be at all lessened by the fact that the carpenter had a patent under which he could license other people. The patent does not constitute the right to make or use or sell, for such right is enjoyed without a patent. The patent constitutes the "exclusive" right to make, sell or use, and this the shop owner does not get unless he specially bargains for it. Implied licenses stand on delicate ground, and where men employ people of ingenious talent, with the understanding that the results of such talent developed during the employment shall inure to the benefit of the employer, there is only one safeguard, and that is to found the employment on a contract unmistakably setting forth the understanding.