page_title: Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States
section_title: Majority opinion
hierarchical_section_title: Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States / Ruling of the Supreme Court / Majority opinion
caption_attribution_description: English: Owen Roberts, U.S. Supreme Court justice
context_page_description: Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, 323 U.S. 386, was a patent-antitrust case that the Government brought against a cartel in the glass container industry. The cartel, among other things, divided the fields of manufacture of glass containers, first, into blown glass and pressed glass, which was subdivided into: products made under the suction process, milk bottles, and fruit jars. The trial court found the cartel violative of the antitrust laws and the Supreme Court agreed that the market division and related conduct were illegal. The trial court required royalty-free licensing of present patents and reasonable royalty licensing of future patents. A divided Supreme Court reversed the requirement for royalty-free licensing as "confiscatory," but sustained the requirement for reasonable royalty licensing of the patents.
context_section_description: Justice Owen Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court. He began: "Two questions are presented. Were violations proved? If so, are the provisions of the decree right?" The Court was unanimous that the answer to the first question was affirmative. It summarized the facts as follows:
  Hartford . . . had acquired . . . more than 600 patents. These, with over 100 Corning controlled patents, over 60 Owens patents, over 70 Hazel patents, and some 12 Lynch patents, had been, by cross-licensing agreements, merged into a pool which effectually controlled the industry.  This control was exercised to allot production in Corning's field to Corning, and that in restricted classes within the general container field to Owens, Hazel, Thatcher, Ball, and such other smaller manufacturers as the group agreed should be licensed. The result was that 94% of the glass containers manufactured in this country on feeders and formers were made on machinery licensed under the pooled patents.
  The Court then turned to the issue of the proper relief, on which the Court was divided. Justice Roberts, writing for himself, Chief Justice Harlan Stone, and Justices Stanley Reed, and Felix Frankfurter, held that substantial parts of the judgment should be reversed, but Justices Hugo Black and Wiley Rutledge dissented to such modifications. Justices William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, and Robert Jackson took no part in consideration or decision of the case.
caption: Owen J. Roberts delivered the majority opinion
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