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 #:
000190
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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168 Opinion on Reissue 12,037. shaft through a pulley which is frictionally mounted upon the reel shaft. The shaft carrying the feed wheels is controlled by a stop or escapement movement which is driven positively by another shaft, so that, although the motor tends to drive the feed wheels continuously, they are only permitted to turn with an intermittent motion by the stop or escapement device, the pulley which drives the feed wheels slipping on the feed wheel shaft, while that shaft is held at rest by the stop or escapement device. A shutter consisting of a rotating disk having an opening in it is mounted directly upon the motor shaft and revolves past the lens, so that the light from the lens is intermittently thrown upon and cut off from the sensitive surface of the film. The camera is shown as a single lens, and is arranged to project the image of the scene being photographed upon the film when the openings of the shutter disk are opposite the aperture between the lens and the film. In operation the apparatus is first charged with a tape-film several hundred or even thousands of feet in length. The specification states that the parts are preferably proportioned so that the film is at rest for nine-tenths of the time, in order to give the sensitized film as long an exposure as practible, and is moving forward onetenth of the time, and that the forward movement is made to take place 30 or more times per second, and preferably at least as high as 46 times per second, although the rapidity of movement or number of times per second may be regulated as desired to give satisfactory results, and there should be at leasi enough so that the eye of the observer cannot distinguish, or at least cannot clearly or positively distinguish at a glance, the difference in posilion occupied by the objects in the successive pictures." The securing of intermittent action to the parts which engage the film is effected by certain stop devices, the details of which need not be inquired into. They are equally adapted to other uses than those shown in the patent, and are the subject of a separate patent to Edison No. 491,993. The important distinctive feature is the manner in which these intermittently moving parts handle the film. In addition to the