Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/329/394/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 19:45:44+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 329 › Edward Katzinger Co. v. Metallic Mfg. Co.
Edward Katzinger Co. v. Metallic Mfg. Co.
A patent licensing agreement provided that the licensee should sell the licensed products at prices fixed by the licensor and should be estopped from denying the validity of the patent. The products were sold widely in interstate commerce. A controversy having arisen as to the coverage of certain products by the patent, the licensing agreement was terminated, the licensee sued for a declaratory judgment declaring the patent invalid, and the licensor counterclaimed for unpaid royalties or damages for infringement. The patent was held invalid.
1. In these circumstances, the licensee is not estopped to challenge the validity of the patent. Sola Electric Co. v. Jefferson Electric Co., 317 U. S. 173; Scott Paper Co. v. Marcalus Mfg. Co., 326 U. S. 249. Pp. 329 U. S. 398-401.
2. The licensee's obligations to pay royalties and to sell at prices fixed by the licensor are not severable. P. 329 U. S. 401.
3. Since the royalties here claimed accrued, if they accrued at all, prior to the time the licensing agreement terminated, the fact of subsequent termination does not free the promise to pay royalties from the taint of the price-fixing provision. P. 329 U. S. 401.
4. The alleged fact that the licensee suggested the price-fixing provision in the licensing agreement does not estop him from challenging its validity as being in violation of the antitrust laws. P. 329 U. S. 401.
5. The specific contract not to challenge the validity of the patent cannot override congressional policy against contracts in restraint of interstate trade any more than can an implied estoppel. P. 329 U. S. 402.
Court held that the licensee was estopped to challenge the validity of the patent. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded to the District Court to pass on the validity of the patent. 139 F.2d 291. The District Court held the patent invalid. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 153 F.2d 149. This Court granted certiorari. 328 U.S. 826. Affirmed, p. 329 U. S. 402.
The question here is whether the defendant, in a suit to recover royalties only under a terminated patent license agreement containing price-fixing provisions, can challenge the validity of the patent despite a covenant in the license contract that he would not do so.
The petitioner, Edward Katzinger Company, and the respondent, Chicago Metallic Mfg. Company, make and sell tin baking pans. The undenied testimony was that Metallic sold its pans over a large part of the United States, probably in every state in the country. Katzinger became owner of Jackson patent No. 2,077,757 on a certain type of pan. [Footnote 1] Metallic, accused of infringing, entered into a licensing contract under which, upon payment of stipulated royalties, it was authorized to manufacture and sell pans made in accordance with the claimed invention.
it ordered an accounting to determine royalties due for the period prior to termination of the license contract, and for infringement damages thereafter.
Relying upon our decision in Sola Electric Co. v. Jefferson Electric Co., 317 U. S. 173, the Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. It held that the agreement to fix prices was inseparably connected with the agreement to pay royalties; that, if the patent was invalid, the price-fixing provision violated the federal antitrust laws; that conflict of the price-fixing provision with the antitrust laws would make the agreement to pay royalties unenforceable, and that the District Court had erred in barring Metallic from challenging the patent's validity as a predicate to establishing the illegality and consequent unenforceability of the royalty covenant. The cause was remanded to the District Court to pass upon validity of the patent. 139 F.2d 291. That Court then held the patent invalid, and rendered judgment for Metallic. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 153 F.2d 149. We granted certiorari because of a conflicting decision in Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. v. MacGregor, 350 Pa. 333, 38 A.2d 244. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the MacGregor case ruled that price-fixing provisions in a license agreement such as the one before us were severable from the agreement to pay royalties, and read our Sola case as though it were a holding that a licensee was estopped to challenge a patent's validity except in cases where a licensor sought affirmative relief to enforce price-fixing provisions of a license.
v. Harvey Steel Co., 196 U. S. 310, which were concerned with particular circumstances there involved. In the Sola case, we declined to examine these prior decision, holding that neither of them was relevant because "no price-fixing stipulation was involved in the license contract" at issue in those cases. So here, it would be inappropriate to reexamine those decisions now. Under what other circumstances a federal rule of estoppel might be applied is a question which can be met when particular facts present it.
issue. If we had intended to draw such a fine line, it is hard to believe that such a careful writer as the late Chief Justice would have failed to indicate in the opinion of the mandate of the Court in the Sola case that, on remand the trial court, while permitting challenge of the patent to defeat the injunction, must treat the price-fixing provision as severable, and forbid challenge for the purpose of defeating the claim for recovery of royalties. [Footnote 5] That decision, instead of resting on such a narrow procedural base, was firmly grounded upon the broad public interest in freeing our competitive economy from the trade restraints which might be imposed by price-fixing agreements stemming from narrow or invalid patents. Sola Electric Co. v. Jefferson Electric Co., supra, at 317 U. S. 177.
"is not only a private right to the individual, but it is founded on public policy, which is promoted by his making the defense, and contravened by his refusal to make it."
If the question of severability, urged by the petitioner here, were a new one, we should again arrive at the conclusion we reached in the Sola case. Metallic's obligation to pay the royalties and its agreement to sell at prices fixed by Katzinger constituted an integrated consideration for the license grant. Consequently, when one part of the consideration is unenforceable because in violation of law, its integrated companion must go with it. See Hazelton v. Sheckels, 202 U. S. 71, 202 U. S. 78. Moreover, solicitude for the interest of the public fostered by freedom from invalid patents and from restraints of trade, which has been manifest by the line of decisions of which the Scott Paper Co. and Sola cases are two of the latest examples, requires that there should be no departure from the guiding principles they announced.
specific contract not to challenge the validity of Katzinger's patent can no more override congressional policy than can an implied estoppel. See Scott Paper Co. v. Marcalus Mfg. Co., supra, at 326 U. S. 257, and cases cited.
Other patents originally in suit are not involved in this case.
"3. Licensor agrees that, while this agreement remains in force and effect, if it permits others under license or other agreement to manufacture or sell articles or devices embodying or made in accordance with any of the patents or applications hereinbefore described, upon terms more favorable than those granted the Licensee hereunder, the Licensor shall immediately notify the Licensee hereunder and grant the same terms to the Licensee."
"11. Licensor reserves the right to establish a minimum sales price for the articles or products which Licensee is licensed to manufacture hereunder and to modify or change such minimum prices from time to time during the life of this agreement. The Licensor, as well as Licensee and any other person, persons, or corporation licensed by Licensor shall not, with the consent of Licensor, sell or offer for sale, or otherwise dispose of any of the licensed devices or products below said minimum sales price, or on more favorable terms of sale than those set forth in any such scale or prices so established by Licensor. Contemporaneously with the execution and delivery of this license agreement, Licensee has received from Licensor a schedule of minimum prices, effective as of the date hereof, below which none of the products or devices made under this license shall be sold. Licensor reserves the right, upon thirty (30) days' notice in writing given by Licensor to Licensee, to change said minimum prices from time to time during the life hereof. On such articles or devices made and sold by Licensee as to which Licensor shall have failed or neglected to establish a minimum sales price, the royalty shall likewise be computed on the net sales price received by Licensee from its customers. Licensee or its duly authorized representatives shall have access from time to time to he books of account of Licensor during ordinary business hours for the purpose of determining whether or not Licensor has complied with the provisions of this paragraph."
"in pursuance of this license agreement, Metallic did, for a period of two years, more or less, exercise the license therein given by making certain tinware products, maintaining minimum prices and paying therefor applicable royalties."
While the court originally made findings to the effect that Metallic did not attempt to carry out the price-fixing agreement and was willing to have it removed from the contract, these findings were expressly vacated on remand.
The schedule of minimum prices incorporated by reference into the license agreement was set out as an exhibit in Katzinger's counterclaim.
The cases cited in the Sola decision rejected contentions that the offending price-fixing provisions should be considered severable from the rest of the contract, and therefore enforceable. See, e.g., Bement v. National Harrow Co., 186 U. S. 70, 186 U. S. 88; Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Louis Voight & Sons Co., 212 U. S. 227, 230 [argument of counsel -- omitted].
That this Court's attention was called in the Sola case to this question is shown by examination of the brief filed here for Sola, which cited decisions of this Court to support a contention that the provisions for royalties and price-fixing were inseparable, and that royalties must be denied if the price-fixing provision were illegal. Morton Salt Co. v. Suppiger Co., 314 U. S. 488; Loud v. Pomona Land & Water Co., 153 U. S. 564, 153 U. S. 576; Williams v. Bank of United States, 2 Pet. 96.
See Morton Salt Co. v. Suppiger Co., supra, at 314 U. S. 492.

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