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 1
Leaf #:
000185
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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Opinion on Camera and Film Patent. 163 had allowed their plans to remain upon paper as indications of the forms of mechanical and optical apparatus which might be used when suitable photographic surfaces became available. They had not perfected the details of apparatus especially adapted for the employment of the film of the patent, and to do this required but a moderate amount of mechanical ingenuity. Undoubtedly Mr. Edison, by utilizing this film and perfecting the first apparatus for using it, met all the conditions necessary for commercial success. This, however, did not entitle him, under the patent laws, to a monopoly of all camera apparatus capable of utilizing the film. Nor did it entitle him to a monopoly of all apparatus employing a single camera. We conclude that the functional limitations which are inserted in the claims do not restrict the patent to the scope of Mr. Edison's real invention. We cannot undertake to point out the differences between the scope of the real invention and the claims. The real invention, if it involved invention as distinguished from improvement, probably consists of details of organization, by which the capacity of the reels and the moving devices are augmented and adapted to carry the film of the patent rapidly and properly. It suffices to say that the modifications required to conform old apparatus to the use of the tape film, and which would define the real invention, cannot be imported into the first and third claims without violence to their terms; and the second claim is broader than the third. The fifth claim of the patent is obviously an attempt by the patentee to obtain a monopoly of the product of the apparatus described in the patent, so that in the event it should turn out that his apparatus was not patentable, or the product could be made by apparatus not infringing his, he could nevertheless enjoy the exclusive right of making it. A claim for an article of manufacture is not invalid merely because the article is the product of a machine, whether the machine is patented or unpatented ; but it is invalid unless the article is new in a patentable sense, — that is, unless its original conception or production involved invention, as distinguished from ordinary mechanical skill. If it is new only in the sense that it embodies and represents superior workmanship, or is an improvement upon an old article in degree and excellence, within all authorities the