MONOPOLY IN PATENTS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1419, 20 April 1912, Page 15

MONOPOLY IN PATENTS.

[POETANT DECISION BV UNITED

STATES COUBT.

A far-reaching decision upholding: the right of patentees to dictate absolutely how their patented articles may be Eold by retailers, «nd declaring legal the investor's "monopoly" in his selling contracts, was mado by the Supreme Court

of the United States on March 11. Tho | decision was by a divided Court, for, against this majority view, announced by Justice Lurton, three members of the Bench—Chief .Justice White and Justices Hughes and Lamar—dissented. Attorney-General Wickersham, SolicitorGeneral Lehmann, and a large assembly of lawyers were present in the Court and apparently regarded the decision as of great importance. Chief Justice White declared that Congress should act to head off "un 1 - that would follow this construction of the patent laws. He said that under the

majority's ruling the patent laws coult bo stretched so as to include ill a pntenl every conceivable thing used in even

American household. The Chief Justice arraigned the majority opinion as breaking all precedents, the Court in its past history never having failed to do its duty to the whole people and to stand as the protector of every household.

Ihe case involved alleged infringement in selling supplies for use on a patented rotary mimeograph. A notice en tho machine set forth that it was sold on the restriction that it was to bs used only with supplies made by tho patenting company.

! In announcing the opinion, Justice Lurton said this conclusion resulted from the proper construction of the patent statutes. The very object of this statute, ho said, was to give a monopoly to the inventor, and tho fact that ho continues that monopoly in his contracts disposing of his articles by charging such priceas he pleases, was not illegal. If such conditions interfered with public policy, he said, Congress alone must change the patent law.

Chief Justice White and Justices Hughes and Lamar dissented. The Chief Justice said he did so because he hoped a dissenting opinion might serve as an antidote to a poison that might enter in future' into millions of transactions touching every phase of society. Again, ho said, he hoped to call attention that this was a question of construction, and that if untold evils were not to follow, Congress must act.

The Chief Justice said with a limited patent the patent law as construed by tho majority could now reach out, and, by contact, include within the patent ever/ conceivable thing used in every American household.

With unusual earnestness the Chief Justice declared that now tho patentee might become a patent law unto himself, monopolising things net novel, nor new. In emphasising the extent to which the decision would reach and how fnr already restrictions were placed on the sale of patented articles, the Chief Justice told of buying a razor recenlly.

"When I got home I found I had become an infringer of a 'patent because

I had paid for the razor the price I had been asked and nothing more," said he.

At least, he declared, the majority should have placed a limit on its decision by which public policy would not allow tho patent law to be used as a screen to commit wrongs and work monopoly in articles not patentable.