SHARES IN PATENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 160, 8 July 1932, Page 11

SHARES IN PATENT.

VALIDITT OF AGREEMENT. JUDGMENT FOR DEFENDANT. In giving judgment for the defendant yesterday, in the case in which the Court was asked to decide the validity or otherwise of an agreement, Mr. Justice Herdman said that if the parties had used common sense and had been prepared to give and take a little, the whole matter might have been settfed without litigation. The plaintiff was George Stephenson Gordon, of Takanini, marine engineer, and the defendant Joseph Kenyon Rodger, of Auckland, salesman. Plaintiff sought to have an agreement between them declared invalid, and also claimed £50 damages for wrongful entry in the patent register. The agreement disputed by plaintiff was one entered into on June 6, 1931, in which it was agreed that plaintiff and defendant were each to receive a halfinterest in a "pulsator releaser" invented by the plaintiff, the understanding being that the defendant was to find £100 to manufacture three machines and take out the patent rights for New Zealand and Australia. The plaintiff claimed that the agreement was never intended to bo a> binding contract and was only signed by plaintiff to enable defendant to raise the necessiiry finance. The real position was that plaintiff was to have a half-share, his father, who had provided a certain sum of money, a quarter-share, and the defendant a quarter-share. Counsel for defendant submitted that the agreement signed was not a false document drawn up and signed to misload the banks from whom defendant intended to seek finance, but was a genuine and honest statement between the parties. His Honor, in giving judgment for defendant, said ho could not agree with the contention of plaintiff that the agreement was incomplete. The parties seemed to be very frank about the matter, but they had been fighting away about something that was not of very great importance.