In the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the United States of America, petitioner, vs. Motion Picture Patents Company, et al., defendants (1913)

Record Details:

Title:
In the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the United States of America, petitioner, vs. Motion Picture Patents Company, et al., defendants
Date:
1913
Publisher:
New York, Appeal Printing Co.
Volume:
In the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the United States of America, petitioner, vs. Motion Picture Patents Company, et al., defendants : record volume 3
Leaf #:
00036
Language:
English
Collection:
Early Cinema and Government & Law
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
These seven volumes contain the testimonies and supporting documents from the U.S. District Court's antitrust lawsuit against the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC). Formed in 1908, the MPPC (sometimes referred to asœ"the Edison Trust" or just "the Trust") sought to control the American film industry through pooling patents and demanding that producers and exhibitors acquire licenses to those patents. Independent producers and exhibitors, who refused to license the patents, argued that the MPPC was an unlawful monopoly. In 1912 and 1913, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania heard testimonies from both MPPC members, such as Siegmund Lubin, and "Independents" who later became Hollywood moguls, such as William Fox. Ultimately, in 1915, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which found the MPPC in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and spelled the end for the already weakening MPPC. -- Eric Hoyt, 2012
Date Added:
September 21, 2023
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1262 H. N. Marvin, Direct Examination. der that license, must thereby acquire, by implication, automatically, a license under the projecting machine patent, because the only use that can be made of film is to exhibit it in a projecting machine. And the only real projecting machine available in which that film could be used was the projecting machine covered by the patents owned by the licensor, the Patents Company. Of what use would it be to a man to take a license to make film if he could not use the film? Its only function was to be used in connection, and also, you may say, as an element of a projecting machine. But the projecting machine, and the only projecting machine available to that man, was the projecting machine covered by the other patents of the Patents Company. So that if the Patents Company should have attempted to license a man, and he paid money to the Patents Company for that license under the film patent, he would have gotten nothing for his money, unless he could use that film in a projecting machine covered by the patents owned by the Patents Company. And in that case, the Patents Company, if it had granted such a license, would have estopped itself, apparently, from any revenue under the projecting machine patent, and, conversely, if the Patents Company sold a projecting machine, or licensed someone else to sell its projecting machine, and a man bought one of those projecting machines in good faith, and paid his money for it, he would be entitled to use it in the only way in which a projecting machine can be used, that is, for the exhibition of film. He would not want to use that projecting machine for an ornament, he would not want to use it for a sewing machine; he bought it apparently for use — Mr. Grosvenor: I object to all of this answer as being argumentative. The Witness: I am merely trying to explain why that provision was put in. I wanted to say that the purchaser of that projecting machine, who bought it in good faith, and paid his money for it, from a licensed manufacturer, we thought would have the right to use that machine. He must use it with film, and if he used it with film, it would have to be with the patented film of the Patents Company, because there was no other film, and the Patents Company knew there was no other film, and the purchaser would know there