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 #:
000564
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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341G Gov't Ex. 277, Decision on Latham Patent. reached because of the narrow issue presented in the interference. For instance, the court says: "We are free to confess in this case, that, the inspection of the original machine, and the proof of its efficient performance in intermittently moving the film for the taking of pictures, in connection with the evidence of the first private trials in exhibiting pictures, has strongly inclined us to decide in favor of its reduction to practice." 2 But they were unable to do this because of "all of the limitations and requirements of the issue." If the questions had been those with which we are now concerned, I am persuaded that the court would have reached a different conclusion. I am not convinced that Latham's conduct in the Patent Office was unfair or disingenuous, unless persistent and untiring effort to secure what he believed to be his rights can be so characterized. He fought on until he secured claims which covered not a different invention, but the invention which he had reduced to practice in Febru 3 ary, 1895. I am convinced that Latham made a valuable invention, not an epoch-making invention, it is true, but one which introduced a much-needed improvement into the motion picture art. It remedied the difficulties which had baffled inventors of unquestioned genius and placed the art upon a successful commercial basis. In such circumstances, it is, in my opinion, the duty of the court to save rather than to destroy the patent. For these reasons I am unable to concur in the disposition of this appeal by the majority of the court. I think that the decree should be reversed and the cause remanded 4 to the District Court with instructions to enter a decree in favor of the complainant with costs. Whereupon, at 11 :30 A. M., the hearings were adjourned on this Friday, April 10th, 1914, to Wednesday, April 15th, 1914, at 10 :30 A. M., at the Hotel Manhattan, New York City.