Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/39

TERRITORIAL RIGHTS IN PATENTED ARTICLES. 1 3 lessor of land had agreed to give to the lessee to be used in carry- ing on his business on that land. It was the blood and other refuse of an abattoir, and a subsequent lessee of the abattoir sold this blood and refuse to another, who had notice of the covenant that they were to be given to the complainant. It was held that the lessees of the abattoir were bound by the covenant, and that the purchasers, having notice of it, were bound also, and that they should be restrained from taking or using the products which had been reserved for the complainant. The principle that one who purchases property, with notice of a valid agreement made concerning it conferring a right upon another, would seem to be applicable to personal property, as well as to real estate, and it was this doctrine no doubt to which Justices Blatchford and Shiras referred when they spoke of notice of the rights of assignees of a territorial right, and of "contracts brought home to the purchasers." The notice, however, must be notice of some right relating to the thing purchased, or else of some right of the party or of a third person in other property which is connected with the con- tract of sale. It must be notice of a right acquired in a thing, an equitable right acquired by contract and not conveyance, but still a right in a thing and not a merely personal obligation. The right protected is the right which some person has acquired concerning the thing, and not merely a right which has been ac- quired or given with respect to the actions of another. It is only with this limitation that it will be held that notice affects the right of a purchaser to deal with the thing purchased, whether it be real estate or personal property. The doctrine of restrictive covenants with respect to real estate does not go so far as to permit the owner of land to impress upon it any notion he may please, nor does it impose upon the pur- chaser of land the performance of any contract whatever which the owner may make with another with respect to the use of it.^ Covenants which are enforced under this doctrine are for the most part negative covenants with respect to the manner of the use of the land,^ and they are covenants made upon the sale of the land with the intention that they should affect the use of 1 Brewer v. Marshall, 19 N. J. Eq. 537 ; Wilson v. Hart, L. R. i Ch. App. 463. 3 Haywood v. Brunswick &c. Soc, L. R. 8 Q. B. D. 403; London & S. W. Ry. Co. V. Gomm, L. R, 20 Ch. D. 562.