1. Patents — Assignment by Attorney in Pact — Lack op Authority.

A resident of ETance, who had obtained an American patent, constituted a resident of California his attorney in fact, with full authority to grant licenses on terms therein expressed, and also with authority to assign the patent, but on terms and conditions to be “agreed on and approved by the grantor, or every bargain closed will be void.” The attorney thereafter, without, referring the matter to his principal, transferred in his own name, as grantor, to plaintiff, his executors, etc., “the exclusive liberty, license, power, and authority to make, use, and sell” the machines in all the states and territories of the Union for the remainder of the term of the patent. Reid, that this was an assignment of the patent, and was void as such, both because made in excess of the attorney’s authority, and because it was his own act and deed, and not that of his principal.

%. Same — Ratification by Principal.

After this transfer to plaintiff, the attorney wrote his principal that he had sold “(lie license at the price and conditions mentioned in your power of attorney.” Thereafter the principal, in a letter to plaintiff!, relating mainly to the value of the invention, and the proper method of exploiting it, used expressions indicating that he understood and recognized that plaintiff had the sole right, for the remainder of the term of the patent, to make and sell in the United States; and afterwards he transmitted to plaintiff a copy of a letter which he had written to certain alleged infringers, in which he pointed out that they must suppress certain parts of their machines, or else come to an agreement with “my licensee in the United States,” etc. In a second letter to the assignee, he tells the latter that, if lie wishes to give lip the “license,” he wo.uhl take it hack. Held, that these letters all indicated that the patentee understood the plaintiff to have'merely a license, and they consequently did not amount to a ratification of the assignment which the attorney had attempted to make.

3. Same — Action by Licensee.

A mere licensee has no authority to sue infringers in his own name.