If they have no special agreement with respect to the patent each can grant licenses to manufacture, independently of the others, without being compelled to account to the others, and each has a right to sell his interest without asking permission of the others.
An _inventor_ is one who has devised an invention. A _patentee_ is one who owns a patent, or an interest in one, be he the inventor or not.
The United States government does not grant Caveats. The only protection offered is by way of patent.
A patent runs for a period of seventeen years, and may be renewed by act of Congress only, for a further term of seven years.
An interference is a proceeding in the Patent Office to determine who is the first inventor of a device. The following is a brief statement of the course followed:
When two or more applicants have applications pending, which, in the opinion of the Examiner, appear to be similar, the Office may declare an interference.
If an applicant has an application pending, and the Examiner rejects it on reference to a patent already issued, the applicant may demand an interference, and the Office will then grant a hearing to determine which of the two is entitled to the patent.
The first step, after the declaration of interference, is to request that each applicant file a preliminary statement, under oath, in which he must set forth the following:
First: The date of conception of the invention.
Second: Date of the first reduction to writing, or the preparation of drawings.
Third: Date of making of the first model or device.
Fourth: When a complete machine was first produced.
These statements are filed in the Patent Office, and opened on the same day, and times are then set for the respective parties to take testimony.
If one of the parties was the first to conceive and reduce to practice, as well as the first to file his application, he will be adjudged to be the first inventor, without necessitating the taking of testimony.
If, on the other hand, one was the first to conceive, and the other the first to file, then testimony will be required to determine the question of invention.
The granting of a patent is not conclusive that the patentee was, in reality, the first inventor. The law is that the patent must issue to the _first_ inventor, and if it can be proven that another party was the first, a new patent will issue to the one who thus establishes his right. The Commissioner of Patents has no right to take away the patent first issued. Only the Courts are competent to do this.