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)

Page scan 000203 from 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 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 #:
000203
Language:
English
Collection:
Government & Law and Early Cinema
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 12, 2024
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Opinion ox Reissue 12,192. 181 machine, process, or product is but its material reflex and embodiment. A new idea may be engrafted upon an old invention, be distinct from the conception which preceded it, and be an improvement. In such case it is patentable. * * * But a carrying forward, or new or more extended application of the original thought, a change only in form, proportions or degree, the substitution of equivalents, doing substantially the same thing in the same way by substantially the same means with better results, is not such invention as will sustain a patent." Smith v. Nichols, 21 Wall., 112-118. Sometimes improvements in a product, owing to skill of workmanship or the perfection of machinery, consists of superiority of finish, greater accuracy of detail, and result in increased commercial value, but they do not thereby become patentable. Smith v. Nichols, 21 Wall., 112-119; Risdon Locomotive Works v. Medart, 158 U. S., G8-81; Glue Co. v. Upton, 97 U. S., 36. Applying those rules to the condition of this case we are of the opinion that plaintiff's assignor, Thomas A. Edison, is not the inventor of the film described in claim 2 and that his patent therefor is invalid. The flexible, transparent or translucent tape-like film prepared for taking photographs, was neither discovered nor produced by Edison. It was improved and brought into its present state of perfection by Eastman. When exhibited to Edison he seized upon it as the thing needed to make his camera apparatus a complete commercial success. He provided it with perforations along the edges at regular intervals into which the teeth of ratchet wheels of the camera entered to give it the required motion; a mechanical contrivance to adapt it to the performance of the functions of the machine. This co-operation of the rows of holes with the teeth of moving wheels he had described in a caveat of 1889 as similar to that in the Wheatstone telegraph instrument, for insuring a positive motion of the band. Moreover, perforations had been previously made in photographic films for feeding purposes. See Reynaud's French Patent. So far, our conclusion is the same substantially as that of the Circuit Court of Appeals in the decision before referred to in which claim 5 of the original patent, and, incidentally, claim 6, were under consideration. It is further contended that the film of the present