United States of America v. Motion Picture Patents Company and others (1914)

49 We have pointed out in our main brief that the film reissue patent, No. 12192, was a reissue of the fifth and sixth claims contained in the original patent, No. 589168, and that this latter patent had been held invalid in 1902. Although the film claims were reissued under No. 12192 in January, 1901, from January, 1904, to February, 1908, no suit of any kind under that patent was pressed by the Edison Company against any manufacturer. Throughout that four-year period numerous manufacturers were importing films, making them in this country and distributing them widely in the United States. (See our brief, pp. 101-105.) It is true that in that period the Edison Company started four suits on 12192, but in only one of those cases (the Schneider case) was any testimony taken, and in that case only two witnesses were examined during the four years. Such inaction on the part of the Edison Company is the strongest kind of evidence that the company considered the patent valueless after Judge Wallace's opinion. During those four years the Edison Company did not bring a single suit against a theater exhibiting films, but when the Biograph Company refused to join the Edison Company, early in 1908, the Edison Company at once started innumerable suits under the film patent all over the United States against the theaters which were customers of the Biograph Company and of George Klein, an importer. As pointed out in our main brief (p. 126), Judge Kohlsaat, in Chicago, stated