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 #:
000251
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:
May 23, 2024
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Harry N. Marvin, Direct Examination. 229 lating to the art of motion pictures. Now, in the composition of the materials that go to make up a photographic film, there may have been many inventions. There may have been an invention in the construction of the celluloid, an invention in the construction of the emulsion, and many other inventions concerned with the raw materials, and perhaps I should have been more accurate if I had said that the motion picture invention was one, and that of Edison, but I did not take the pains to go into the composition of all of the materials composing the structure of the film, and whether there are any existing patents on any of those materials or not, I do not know. Q. It is, then, an inaccurate statement to say that the film "contains one essential invention, Edison's only?'' A. No, I would not say that that was an inaccurate description. When I say "essential" I mean essential to its use as a motion picture commodity. It seems to me that it would be an unnecessary refinement to go into the inventions relating to the composition of the matter. It is as if I had a match safe made out of some material, and the design of the match safe was such that it was susceptible of being patented, and was patented, and one patent covered the article. I would say that that match safe contains one invention, and that is it. But if you inquired into the composition of the alloy that composed it, or the means of fastening it together, — there might be a multitude of patents there which were commodity patents, and which might find their way, in an indirect manner, into the composition of the match safe, but I think it would be a perfectly accurate statement, in general parlance, to state that the match safe was covered by one fundamental patent ; and that is what I had in mind by saying that the motion picture film contained one invention, and that was the invention of Edison. Q. Do you know anything about the manufacture of the film? A. Very little. Q. How many — you know enough about the business to know that the composition of the film is most material? A. Is what? Q. Is most material, — important. A. I do not understand that question. Q. You know that the film produced by Eastman and used by the moving picture manufacturers, is the result of