1156 EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS 



including treble damages, costs of litigation, and an injunction against further 

 infringement. 



The Sun Oil Company filed its answer to the complaint, denying The Texas Com- 

 pany's title to the Mintrop Patent No. 1,599,538 and challenging the validity of that 

 patent on the ground that the subject matter "does not comprise any new, useful art, 

 machine, manufacture or composition of matter or new and useful improvements 

 thereof, and is not the statutory subject of a patent." The answer further averred 

 that the patent was void because the description of the invention was such that a person 

 skilled in the science could not use the patent ; also, that the applicant introduced new 

 matter into the application after it was filed, and that such new matter was substantially 

 different from that contained in the original application. The answer even alleged 

 fraudulent representations as to facts and results in connection with the presentation 

 of the invention to the Patent Office. Additional and more conventional defenses were 

 also interposed. 



Substantially the same defenses were pleaded as to Patents No. 1,724,495 and No. 

 1,724,720, in addition to which the subject matter of these two patents was asserted to 

 be anticipated by earlier patents obtained by the same inventor. 



Evidence on the issues presented never was submitted to the Court. The case was 

 settled on the morning it was to go to trial, the defendant having concluded to acknowl- 

 edge that the Mintrop and McCollum patents were valid. 



One of the provisions of the settlement was that The Texas Company would 

 license Sun Oil and twenty odd companies which had contributed to the defense fund. 

 At a meeting held shortly thereafter in Houston, at which a large number of seismo- 

 graph operators and contractors were represented, Texas presented a form of license 

 in compliance with the settlement and it was accepted as satisfactory. 



That general form has been continued in use by the Texaco Development Corpora- 

 tion, a subsidiary of The Texas Company, and to date more than one hundred compa- 

 nies have been licensed, in addition to the licenses granted at the time of the settlement. 



In 1946, after a number of the more basic patents had expired, the royalty charged 

 by Texaco was voluntarily decreased to one-fifth of the rates originally in force. 



No similar situation has arisen in the other methods of surface pros- 

 pecting. An operator wishing to practice some particular type of geophysical 

 operation has dealt individually with the owners of the various patents 

 involved. 



It is not unusual in the expeditious settling of interferences, particularly 

 those involving more than two inventors, for the parties to agree to cross- 

 license each other under the subject matter covered by the interference, 

 and thereupon to settle the interference relatively rapidly on presentation 

 of the proofs of the various parties. This affords a quick and simple manner 

 of avoiding expensive and complex details. Instances of this type of cross- 

 licensing, which almost invariably preserve to each party an unrestricted 

 right to license the public without accounting to the other cross-licensees, 

 have occurred in the field of geophysical prospecting. In one case, for 

 example, inventions belonging to more than ten parties were involved at 

 the same time in a number of interferences in the field of seismic recording 

 equipment. A cross-license of the type discussed above was worked out 

 between the parties which enabled the legal controversy to be amicably 

 settled, whereas otherwise it is very probable that years of legal discussion 

 and an expense which would have been a hardship on all parties concerned 

 would have resulted. 



