Source: https://openjurist.org/314/us/488
Timestamp: 2018-01-19 19:21:20
Document Index: 308698863

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 8', '§ 31', '§ 31']

314 US 488 Morton Salt Co v. G S Suppiger Co | OpenJurist
314 U.S. 488 - Morton Salt Co v. G S Suppiger Co
314 US 488 Morton Salt Co v. G S Suppiger Co
62 S.Ct. 402
86 L.Ed. 363
Upon petitioner's motion, pursuant to Rule 56 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, the trial court, without passing on the issues of validity and infringement, granted summary judgment dismissing the complaint. It took the ground that respondent was making use of the patent to restrain the sale of salt tablets in competition with its own sale of unpatented tablets, by requiring licensees to use with the patented machines only tablets sold by respondent. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, 117 F.2d 968, because it thought that respondent's use of the patent was not shown to violate § 3 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 14, 15 U.S.C.A. § 14, as it did not appear that the use of its patent substantially lessened competition or tended to create a monopoly in salt tablets. We granted certiorari 313 U.S. 555, 61 S.Ct. 1098, 85 L.Ed. 1517, because of the public importance of the question presented and of an alleged conflict of the decision below with B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis, 1 Cir., 117 F.2d 829, and with the principles underlying the decisions in Carbice Corp. v. American Patents Development Corp., 283 U.S. 27, 51 S.Ct. 334, 75 L.Ed. 819, and Leitch Mfg. Co. v. Barber Co., 302 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 288, 82 L.Ed. 371.
The Clayton Act authorizes those injured by violations tending to monopoly to maintain suit for treble damages and for an injunction in appropriate cases. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2, 14, 15, 26, 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 1, 2, 14, 15, 26. But the present suit is for infringement of a patent. The question we must decide is not necessarily whether respondent has violated the Clayton Act, but whether a court of equity will lend its aid to protect the patent monopoly when respondent is using it as the effective means of restraining competition with its sale of an unpatented article.
The grant to the inventor of the special privilege of a patent monopoly carries out a public policy adopted by the Constitution and laws of the United States, 'to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to * * * Inventors the exclusive Right * * *.' to their 'new and useful' inventions. United States Constitution, Art. I, § 8, cl. 8; 35 U.S.C. § 31, 35 U.S.C.A. § 31. But the public policy which includes inventions within the granted monopoly excludes from it all that is not embraced in the invention. It equally forbids the use of the patent to secure an exclusive right or limited monopoly not granted by the Patent Office and which it is contrary to public policy to grant.
Undoubtedly 'equity does not demand that its suitors shall have led blameless lives', Loughran v. Loughran, 292 U.S. 216, 229, 54 S.Ct. 684, 689, 78 L.Ed. 1219, cf. Keystone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290 U.S. 240, 241, 245, 54 S.Ct. 146, 147, 78 L.Ed. 293; but additional considerations must be taken into account where maintenance of the suit concerns the public interest as well as the private interests of suitors. Where the patent is used as a means of restraining competition with the patentee's sale of an unpatented product, the successful prosecution of an infringement suit even against one who is not a competitor in such sale is a powerful aid to the maintenance of the attempted monopoly of the unpatented article, and is thus a contributing factor in thwarting the public policy underlying the grant of the patent. Maintenance and enlargement of the attempted monopoly of the unpatented article are dependent to some extent upon persuading the public of the validity of the patent, which the infringement suit is intended to establish. Equity may rightly withhold its assistance from such a use of the patent by declining to entertain a suit for infringement, and should do so at least until it is made to appear that the improper practice has been abandoned and that the consequences of the misuse of the patent have been dissipated. Cf. B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis, 314 U.S. 495, 62 S.Ct. 406, 86 L.Ed. —-, decided this day.