The Life and Adventures of Carl Laemmle (1931)

124 CARL LAEMMLE figures, a hundred and sixteen exchanges had been handling Trust products in 1909; of these, in 19 1 2, one exchange, not specified, was still carrying on. (11) The regulations of the Trust had been, and still were, enforced with despotic power. Thus the preamble. These activities, obviously, were "unlawful under many decisions of the Supreme Court." It remained to consider the defence. This, it seems, was that the acquisition of patent rights legalised acts that would otherwise have been unlawful. We — the United States of America, maintain on the contrary: (1) That Patent laws could not take precedence of the Sherman Act against oppression of commerce. (2) That motion-picture film was not, by any strict interpretation of the law, a patented commodity. And even if the Trust could prove monopolistic rights in a certain brand of film, it could claim no right to withhold its licenses from producers using a brand unpatented — [i.e. Eastman v. Lumiere]. Again, in any case, the Sherman Act rendered all such arbitrary measures illegal. In short, the Sherman Act transcended Patent law. Proceeding to more generalised submissions, the United States brief maintained that by Congressional mandate "the flow of trade in the channels of Interstate Commerce should remain free