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

Record Details:

Title:
United States of America v. Motion Picture Patents Company and others
Date:
1914
Publisher:
Washington, D.C. : United States. Government Printing Office
Volume:
United States of America v. Motion Picture Patents Company and others
Leaf #:
00076
Language:
English
Collection:
Government & Law and Books
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
December 21, 2023
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70 nothing. A few patentees by combining their inventions may deprive other inventors of the use of their inventions by excluding them from the industry. Similarly, they may deprive the public of the rights acquired in inventions where the patents have expired. This demonstrates the soundness of the rule laid down by the Supreme Court that the Sherman Act prohibits every combination no matter what form it may take. The question in every case is whether or not the combination the lawfulness of which is under consideration has brought about the evils and injury to the public from which the statute is designed to protect the people. We are dealing here with a combination of conditions, with interlocking restrictions imposed by a powerful group of manufacturers, and not with legal and reasonable conditions imposed independently and in the normal and usual course of business by the owner of one patent. The agreements are being enforced to-day. On this point we refer to our main brief, pages 240 et seq. When the petition in this suit was filed, the license agreements of June 6, 1912, were in force and had superseded the earlier agreements of December, 1908. The change effected by the agreements of June 6, 1912, did not materially alter the earlier agreements. These modifications are described in the answer of the Patents Company, fols. 348-355. (See also our main brief, p. 241.) The agreements of June 20, 1913, did not super