Adams v. Bridgewater Iron Co.

The defendant corporation, by its answer to the bill, makes all the defences usual in a patent suit, and adds that it has received from the plaintiff Adams a release, under seal, of all actions for infringement, if it has committed any. A copy of the release is set out, and the defend*180ants pray to have the same benefit of these facts as if they had been pleaded in bar. The plaintiffs except to the answer on the ground that this release, if given precisely as it is averred to have been given, is insufficient in law to bar the plaintiffs’ suit.

A substantive defence, not responsive to the…