California Canning Machinery Co. v. Superior Court

The Benton Ballou Company, Ltd., brought an action against the California Canning Machinery Company, and other defendants, for injunctive relief due to a controversy arising over the interpretation of a license agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant corporation for the use and manufacture of peach-pitting machines, the patents covering which are owned by the California Canning Machinery Company. The point involved is whether the Canning Machinery Company had reserved to itself a joint right to manufacture the pitting machines over and above the 700 then in existence, and as to whether Benton Ballou Co., Ltd., had been granted the exclusive right to sublicense others to use the 700 machines then in existence and a right, not exclusive, to manufacture additional machines embodying the inventions covered by patents, and to sublicense others to use the machines so manufactured. By answer, counterclaim and cross-complaint of the Canning Company substantially the same issues were raised, and the Canning Company further sought to have it adjudged that the agreement had been rescinded. Upon the trial the judgment went in favor of Benton Ballou Company, decreeing that the…