Disclaimer

The act, declaration, or document by which a person denies, disavows, or renounces some interest or right which he formerly claimed, or which has been imputed or offered to him.i 1. In feudal law, when a tenant neglected to render services, and, upon an action brought to recover them, disclaimed to hold of the lord. In a court of record, a forfeiture of the lands to the lord.2 When the tenant, upon a writ of assize of rent, or on a replevin, disavowed his tenure, whereby the lord lost the verdict, the lord could thereupon have a writ of right, sur disc Uwner; and, upon proof of the tenure, recover the land as a punishment to the tenant for his false disclaimer. = A disclaimer must be a renunciation by the party of his character of tenant, by setting up a title in another or by claiming title in himself.* 3. A formal mode of expressing a grantee's dissent to a conveyance before the title has become vested in him. 5 Prevents the estate from passing from the grantor.^ It is essential that the estate disclaimed would vest but for the disclaimer, unless there be an express condition that the grantee shall elect." Filed in an action to try title to land, admits thg plaintiff's title; and entitles the defendant to his costs, unless he was in pdssessipn when the suit was brought. ^ 3. Renunciation of what is or seems to be part of a patentee's claim for invention, and as to which he has no valid claim. Wherever, through inadvertence, accident, or mistake, and without any willful default or intent to defraud or mislead the public, a patentee in his specification has claimed more than that of which he was the original and first inventor or discoverer, his patent is valid for all that part which is truly and justly his own, provided the same is a material and substantial part of the thing patented, and definitely distinguishable from the parts claimed without right; and the patentee, upon seasonably recording in the patent ofdce a disclaimer iu writing of the parts which he did not invent, or to which he has no valid claim, may maintain a suit upon that part which he is entitled to hold, although in a suit brought before the disclaimer he cannot recover costs. A reissued patent is within ■ the letter and spirit of these provisions.^ ' [Abbott, Law Diet.] ! [2 Bl. Com. 275. a 3 Bl. Com. 233. < Williams v. Cooper, 39 E. C. L. 384 (1840), Tindal, Chief Justice. 5 n^atson V. Watson, 13 Conn. 85 (1839). « Jackson v. Richards, 6 Cow. 630 (1827). ' Wootters v. Hall, 67 Tex. 513 (1887); Presoott v. Hutchinson, 13 Mass. *442 (1816). 8 Gage V. Herring, 107 U. S. 646 (1883), cases. Gray, J.; Drawings cannot be used, even on an application for a reissue; * much less, on a disclaimer, to change the patent, and make it embrace a different invention from that described in the specification." See Issue, 1. 4. When a defendant denies that he has or claims any right to the thing in demand by the plaintiflE's bill, and disclaims, that is, renounces, all claim tliereto.' Where the defendant renounces all claim to the subject of the demand, made by the plaintiff's bill.* Distinct in substance from an answer, although sometimes confounded with it; and it can seldom be put in without an answer.*