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 (1914)

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:
1914
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 6
Leaf #:
000299
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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PETITIONER'S Exhibit No. 2(>7. 3305 avoid infringement by using other ingredients which did not affect the ultimate result. We do not deem it necessary to enter upon a discussion of the Reichenbach interference further than to say that this, as well as most of the complications in the case, would have been avoided had the Goodwin patent gone to issue in due course, as it should have done. The long delay and the contradictory rulings of the Patent Office would have discouraged an inventor who had not supreme faith in the justice of his cause. If we are right in thinking that Goodwin made a generic invention it follows that he is entitled to hold as infringers those who use the equivalents of nitrobenzole and alcohol. In the process of the patent, and of the defendant, nitrocellulose is used. In both it is dissolved in a menstruum containing a high boiling, non-hydrous, non-hydroscopic solvent like nitrobenzole or its equivalents and a diluent like alcohol or its equivalents. In both the processes of the defendant nitrocellulose is dissolved in a menstruum consisting of a high-boiling, non-hydrous, non-hygroscopic solvent and a diluent of wood alcohol. In the process of 1898 the solvent was amyl-acetate 5 parts, fusel oil about 16 parts and camphor 3 to 5 parts. The diluent was wood alcohol 101 parts. In the 1902 process the solvent was fusel oil 10 parts and camphor 3 parts. The diluent was wood alcohol 10 parts and acetone 10 parts. There can be no doubt that the defendant uses nitrocellulose and the diluent of the patent, viz., alcohol — wood alcohol being expressly referred to in the patent as an example of a diluent having a low boiling point and a relatively quick evaporating quality. The only debatable' question relates to the equivalency of the defendant's solvent and we cannot doubt that the combination of fusel oil, camphor and amyl-acetate of 1898 process and the fusel oil and camphor of the 1902 process are equivalents of the high boiling, non-hydrous, non-hygroscopic solvent of the patent. It matters not that the defendant's process produces better results than that of the patent. Assuming this to be true, it does not give the defendant the right to use Goodwin's discovery because it has introduced improvements. It would be strange, indeed, if during the fifteen years which elapsed from the date of the Goodwin application to the adoption of the 1902 process there had been no progress in the art. Undoubtedly there was progress, but as we have had occasion to