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 (1914)

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:
1914
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 5
Leaf #:
00061
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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Petitioner's Exhibit No. 263. 2511 and not to motion picture films, which the court dismissed in the following terms : " 'In the prior suit the circuit court sustained claims Numbers 1, 3 and 5, and those only came to this court upon the appeal. It was held that the patentee was not entitled to such broad claims, the decree of the circuit court was reversed, and the bill dismissed. " 'Thereupon the patentee applied for, and obtained, a re-issue in two patents, one for the film as a new article of manufacture (the subject of original claim Number 6), which /s not involved in this case, and the other (camera patent) which is now sued upon.' Validity of Patents Established. "This decision was advantageous to both litigants, as it established the validity of the Edison and the Biograph patents on cameras, i. e., the court declared that the Biograph company owned an original, valid patent covering its own apparatus, entirely distinct from the Edison camera, and the patents covering the latter were also upheld. '"According to the present situation, therefore, no moving picture negative can be made in the United States without infringing either the Edison or the Biograph camera patent. The rights of these two patentees are independent of each other, and each can license a manufacturer to make moving picture negatives in the United States upon his own apparatus. "We now come to the Edison patent covering films. Clauses 5 and 6 of the original application by Edison, covering films as 'an unbroken transparent or translucent, tape-like photographic film, having thereon equi-distant photographs of successive positions of an object in motion, all taken from the same point of view, such photographs being arranged in a continuous, straight-line sequence, unlimited in number, save by the length of the film.' Question of Perforated Edges. "Paragraph 6 of the original application covers films in the same terms, adding the phrase 'with perforated edges.' "If these claims were declared valid, Edison would control the making of motion picture films, with or without perforated edges. However, these claims have never