Selected Cases in Constitutional Law (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 Excerpt: ...20. November 18, 1912. Sixteen corporations embracing 85 per cent. of the manufacturers and 90 per cent. of the jobbers in enameled ironware, such as bathtubs, sinks, etc., made in the United States, entered into a mutual agreement by which they bound themselves to sell certain grades of the ware only at the prices and on the terms fixed in the schedules attached to the agreement, or by a committee appointed by the parties thereto, and only to jobbers who should sign the resale contract prepared by them, the conditions of which were that they would not resell to plumbers except at the prices determined by the manufacturers and that they would not deal in the products of manufacturers not in the combination. The contracts or agreements creating the combination were embodied in written licenses to its members (the defendants) to use a patented automatic dredger, which was a useful and time-saving tool used in finishing the ware to sprinkle the last two or more coats of powdered enamel on the heated iron, the ware itself being unpatented, and the enameling being but one of the several operations required in its production, to which operation even the patented dredger was not an essential, but merely an improvement on the hand-operated dredges of the prior art still in use in some factories. The government brought a civil suit for a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against the corporations in this combination and joined as a party defendant, Edwin L. Wayman, the licensor of the right to use the automatic dredger, as it was in his license agreements with the various companies that the provisions for price fixing, etc., appeared. The defendants contended that a patentee could make such agreements as these under the patent laws without violating the Sherman...