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36 OKIGINAL PETITION.
owned, defendants coveted the unlawful power which would come to them if they combined all patents in one ownership; that is, if they created and thereafter possessed and maintained a monopoly of all patents relating to the motionpicture art. Defendants formed a combination of patents as one of the methods for monopolizing interstate and foreign commerce pertaining to the motion-picture art.
The Motion Picture Patents Company is an unlawful instrumentality operated and maintained by defendants solely for the purpose of carrying into effect their unlawful intent. The Patents Company has never owned any property except the patents transferred to it by defendants and which, upon its dissolution, it must reassign, without consideration, to the several defendants who owned and transferred them to the Patents Company. (Supra, pp. 14 to 16.). Other than collecting royalties from defendants and distributing such royalties among them in the manner prescribed by the agreements, its only business has been and is the bringing of lawsuits under the patents which it acquired from defendants. Acting under the direction of the other defendants, in order to compel observance by rental exchanges, exhibitors, and all other persons of the unlawful restraints embodied in the agreements, and in order to harass and oppress all persons engaged in the motion-picture business who have not obeyed its mandates, it has brought hundreds of suits in the courts of law against rental exchanges, exhibitors, and others. Defendants have used their power, great by virtue of their combination, unreasonably and oppressively in order to further extend their monopoly and exclude others from the motion-picture art.
Defendants devised the interlocking restrictions, described above, applying to the use of their several machines, appliances, and apparatus as a method to perpetuate their monopoly. Not one of these restrictions is a legal and reason