Court Opinion

ID: 9841900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:10:25.788101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:04.965388
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice White,
with whom concurred Mr. Justice Hughes and Mr. Justice Lamab, dissenting.
My reluctance to dissent is overcome in this case: First, because the ruling now made has a much wider scope than the mere interest of the parties to this record, since, in my opinion, the effect of that ruling is to destroy, in a very large measure, the judicial authority of the States by unwarrantedly extending the Federal judicial power. Second, because the result just stated, by the inevitable development of the principle announced, may not be confined to sporadic or isolated cases, but will be as broad as society itself, affecting a multitude of people and capable of operation upon every conceivable subject of human contract, interest or activity, however *50intensely local and exclusively within state authority they otherwise might be. Third, because the gravity of the consequences which would ordinarily arise from such a result is greatly aggravated by the ruling now made, since that ruling not only vastly extends the Federal judicial power, as above stated, but as to all the innumerable subjects to which the ruling may be made to apply, makes it the duty of the courts of the United States to test the rights and obligations of the parties, not by the general law of the land, in accord with the conformity act, but by the provisions of the patent law, even although the subjects considered may not be within the embrace of that law, thus disregarding the state law, overthrowing, it may be, the settled public policy of the State, and injuriously affecting a multitude of persons. Lastly, I am led to express the reasons which constrain me to dissent, because of the hope that if my forebodings as to the evil consequences to result from the application of the construction now given to the patent statute be weir founded, the statement of my reasons may serve a twofold purpose: First, to suggest that the application in future cases of the construction now given be confined within the narrowest limits, and, second, to serve to make it clear that if evils arise their continuance will not be caused by the interpretation now given to the statute, but will result from the inaction of the legislative department-in failing to amend the statute so as to avoid such evils.
Let me briefly recapitulate the facts and the rulings based thereon. A machine styled a rotary mimeograph was covered by a patent. The claims of the patent, however, did not embrace the ink or other materials used in working the machine, nor were they covered by independent patents. The Dick Company, owner of the patent, sold one of the machines to a Miss Skou. The entire title was parted with; in other words, there *51was no condition imposed affecting the title or the uses to which the machine might be applied or the duration of the use. Upon the machine, however, was. inscribed a notice, styled a License Restriction, reciting that the machine “may be used only with the stencil paper, ink and other supplies made by the A. B. Dick Company, Chicago, U. S. A.” The Henry Company, dealers in ink, sold to Miss Skou, for use in working her machine, ink not made by the Dick Company. The court now decides that a use of such ink by Miss Skou would have been “a use of the machine in a prohibited way,” and would have rendered her “liable to an action under the patent law for infringement,” and that the seller of the ink was liable as an infringer of the patent on the machine because of the aiding and abetting of a proposed infringing use.
I cannot bring- my mind to assent to the conclusion referred to, and shall state in the light of reason and authority why I cannot do so. As I have said, the ink was not covered by the patent; indeed, it is stated in ar.gument and not denied that a prior patent which covered the ink had expired before the sale in question. It, therefore, results that a claim for the ink could not have been lawfully embraced in the patent, and if it had been by inadvertence allowed such claim would not have been enforcible. This curious anomaly then results, that that which was not embraced by the patent, which could not have been embraced therein and which if mistakenly allowed and included in an express claim would have been inefficacious, is now by the effect of a contract held to be embraced by the patent and covered by the patent law. This inevitably causes the contentions now upheld to come to this, that a patentee in selling the machine covered by his patent has power by contract to extend the patent so as to cause it to embrace things which it does not include; in other words, to exercise legislative power *52of a far-reaching and dangerous character. Looking at it from another point of view and testing the contention by a consideration of the rights protected by the patent law and the rights which an inventor who obtains a patent takes under' that law, the proposition reduces itself to the same conclusion. The natural right of any one to make, vend and use his invention which but for the patent law might be invaded by others, is by that law made exclusive, and hence the power is conferred to exclude others from making, using or vending the patented invention. Paper Bag Patent Case, 210 U. S. 405, 424-425, and cases cited.
The exclusive right of use of the invention embodied in the machine which the patent protected was a right to use it anywhere and everywhere for all and every purpose of which the machine as embraced by the patent was susceptible. The patent was solely upon the mechanism which when operated was capable of producing certain results. A patent for this mechanism was not concerned in any way with the materials to be used in operating the machine, and certainly the right protected by the patent was not a right to use the mechanism with any particular ink or other operative materials. Of course as the owner of the machine possessed the ordinary right of. an owner of property to úse such materials as he pleased in operating his patented machine and had the power in selling his machine to impose such conditions in the nature of covenants not contrary to public policy as he saw fit, I shall assume that he had the power to exact that the purchaser should use only a particular character of materials. But as the right to employ any desired operative materials in using the patented machine was not a right derived from or protected by the patent law, but was a mere'right arising from the ownership of property, it cannot be said that the restriction concerning the use of the materials was a restriction upon the use of the machine protected *53by the patent law. When I say it cannot be said I mean that it cannot be so done in reason, since the inevitable result of so doing would be to declare that the patent protected a use which it did not embrace. And this after all serves to demonstrate that it is a misconception to qualify the restriction as one on the use of the machine, when in truth both in form and substance it was but a restriction upon the use of materials capable of being employed in operating the machine. In other words, every use which the patent protected was transferred to Miss Skou, and the very existence of the particular restriction under consideration presupposes such right of complete enjoyment, and because of its possession there was engrafted a contract restriction, not upon the use of the machine, but upon the materials. And these considerations are equally applicable to the exercise of the exclusive right to vend protected by the patent unless it can be said that by the act of selling a patented machine and disposing of all the use of which it is capable a patentee is endowed with the power to amplify his patent by causing it to cover in the future things which at the time of the sale it did not embrace.
But the result, of this analysis serves at once again to establish, from another point of view, that the ruling now made in effect is that the patentee has the power, by contract, to extend his patent rights so as-to bring within the claims of his patent things which are not embraced therein, thus virtually legislating by causing the patent laws to cover subjects to which without the exercise of the right of contract they could not reach, the result being not only to multiply monopolies at the will of an interested party, but also to destroy the jurisdiction of the state courts over subjects which from the beginning have been within their authority.
The vast extent to which the results just stated may be carried will be at once apparent by considering the facts *54of this case and bearing in mind that this is not the suit of a patentee against one with whom he has contracted to enforce as against such person an act done in violation of a contract as an infringement, but it is against a third person who happened to deal in an ordinary commodity of general use with a person with whom the patentee had contracted. And this statement shows that the effect of the ruling is to make the virtual legislative authority of the owner of a patented machine extend to every human being in society without ref¿rence to their privity to any contract existing between the patentee and the one to whom he has sold the patented machine. It is worthy of observation that the vast power which the ruling confers upon the holders of patented inventions does not alone cause controversies which otherwise would be subject to the state jurisdiction to become matters of exclusive Federal cognizance,' but subjects the rights of the parties when in the Federal forum to the patent law to the exclusion of the state law" which otherwise would apply and it may be to the overthrow of the settled public policy of the State wherein the dealings involved take place. All these results are in a measure comprehensively portrayed by the decree of the Circuit Court. They are, moreover, vividly shown by a reference made by the court to and the putting aside as inapplicable of a previous decision of this court (Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373), which if here applied would cause the alleged license to be held void as against public policy. As the theory upon which the Miles Medical Co. Case is treated as inapplicable is that this case is one governed by the patent laws and therefore not within the rule óf public policy which the Miles Case applied, it is made indubitably clear that the ruling now announced endows the patentee with a right by contract not only to produce the fundamental change as to jurisdiction ei the state and Federal courts to which I have referred, but also to bring about the oyer*55throw of the public policy both of the State and Nation, which I at the outset indicated was a consequence of the ruling now made.
I do not think it necessary to stop to point out the innumerable subjects which will be susceptible of being removed from the operation of state judicial power and the fundamental and radical character of the change which must come as a result of the principle decided. But nevertheless let me give a few illustrations:
. Take a patentee selling a patented engine. He will now have the right by contract to bring under the patent laws all contracts for coal or electrical energy used to afford power to work the machine or even the lubricants employed in its operation. Take a patented carpenter’s plane. The power now exists in the patentee by contract to validly confine a carpenter purchasing one of the planes to the use of lumber sawed from trees grown on the land of a particular person or sawed by a particular mill. Take a patented cooking utensil. The power is now recognized in the patentee to bind by contract one who buys the utensil to use in connection with it no other food supply but that sold or made by the patentee. Take the invention of a patented window frame. It is now the law that the seller of the frame may stipulate that no other material shall be used in a house in which the window frames are placed except such as may be bought from the patentee and seller of the frame. Take an illustration which goes home to every one — a patented sewing-machine. It is now established that by putting on the, machine, in addition to the notice of patent required by law, a notice called a license restriction, the right is acquired, as against the whole world, to control the purchase by users of the machine of thread, needles and oil lubricants or other materials convenient or necessary for operation of the machine. The illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely. That they are not imaginary is now a matter of common *56knowledge, for, as the result of a case decided some years ago by one of the Circuit Courts of Appeal, which has been followed by cases in other Circuit Courts of Appeal, to which reference will hereafter be made, what prior to the first of those decisions on a sale of a patented article was designated a condition of sale, governed by the general principles of law, has come in practice to be denominated a license restriction, thus, by the change of form, under the doctrine announced in the cases referred to, bringing the matters covered by the restriction within .the exclusive sway of the patent law. As the transformation has come about in practice since the decisions in question, the conclusion is that it is attributable as an effect caused by the doctrine of those cases. And, as I have previously stated, it is a matter of common knowledge that the change has been frequently resorted to for the purpose of bringing numerous articles of common use within the monopoly of a patent when otherwise they would not have been embraced therein, thereby tending to subject the whole of society to a widespread and irksome monopolistic control.
But I need not reason further, since, in my opinion, many adjudications of this court directly refute the existence of a supposed right of extension by contract of the patent laws, and are therefore, as I understand them, in conflict with the ruling now made. In Wilson v. Sand-ford (1850), 10 How. 99, the facts were these: Wilson granted to Sandford and the other defendants the right to use a patented planing machine, the consideration to be paid in instalments. Each note contained a provision that the title should revert in case of non-payment. Upon the theory that the refusal to pay an instalment forfeited the rights of the licensees, Wilson sued to restrain the further use of the machine on the ground that such use was an infringement of his patent rights. It was, however, decided that the matter in controversy arose *57upon contract, and that the requisite jurisdictional value was not involved. The claim that jurisdiction could be exercised because the case arose under the patent laws, was thus disposed of (p. 101):
“Now the dispute in this case does not arise under any act of Congress; nor does the decision depend upon the construction of any law in relation to patents. It arises out of the contract stated in the bill; and there is no act of Congress providing for or regulating contracts of this kind. The rights of the parties depend altogether upon common law and equity principles. The object of the bill is to have this contract set aside and declared to be forfeited; and the prayer is, ‘that .the appellant’s reinvestiture of title to the license granted to the appellees, by reason of the forfeiture of the contract, may be sanctioned by the court,’ and for an injunction. But the injunction he asks for is to be the consequence of the decree of the court sanctioning the forfeiture. He alleges no ground for an injunction unless the contract is set aside. And if the case made in the bill was a fit one for relief in equity, it is very clear that whether the contract ought to be declared forfeited or not, in a court of chancery, depended altogether upon the rules and principles of equity, and in no degree whatever upon any act of congress concerning patent rights. And whenever a contract is made in relation to them, which is not provided for and regulated by congress, the parties, if any dispute arises, stand upon the same ground with other litigants as to the right of appeal; and the decree of the circuit court cannot be revised here, unless the matter in dispute exceeds two thousand dollars.”
The foregoing views were reiterated in Bloomer v. McQuewan (1852), 14 How. 539.
In Hartshorn v. Day (1856), 19 How. 211, the court, in commenting upon the effect upon a license, of the nonperformance, by the licensee of a patent right, of cove*58nants made by him, and speaking in particular of a covenant to pay an annuity to one Chaffee, the patentee, said (p.222):
“The payment of the annuity was not a condition to the vesting of the interest in the patent in Judson, and of course . . . the omission or refusal to pay did not give to Chaffee a right to rescind the contract, nor have the effect to remit him to his interest as patentee. The right to the annuity rested in covenant. . . . The remedy for the breach could rest only upon the personal obligation ” of the covenantor.
The cases just referred to and others in accord with them were reviewed in the. opinion in Albright v. Teas, 106 U. S. 613, decided in 1883. The case was this: A patentee sold and assigned all his title and interest in the invention covered by his patents, and the purchasers covenanted to use their best efforts to introduce the invention, to pay specified royalties for the use of the patented improvements, etc. The assignor sued in a state court for a discovery and account and a decree for the amount of royalties found due and for general relief. ' On the application of the defendants the cause was removed into a Circuit Court, upon the theory that the suit was one arising under the patent laws of the United States, and, in consequence, exclusively within the cognizance of the courts of the United States. On final hearing, however, the Circuit Court remanded the cause as being one for the settlement of controversies under a contract, of which the state court had full cognizance. This court held that as the transfer of title was absolute, no rights secured by the patent under any act of Congress remained in the patentee, and that the case arose solely upon the contract and not upon the patent laws of the United States.
The prior cases on the subject were again reviewed by Mr. Justice Gray in Dale Tile Mfg. Co. v. Hyatt (1888), 125 U. S. 46. The plaintiff sued in a state court to re*59cover from one, who had been licensed by a patentee to make and use certain patented articles, to recover royalties due under the contract. The defendant contended in the state court that the subject-matter was one exclusively cognizable in the courts of the United States because the case was one arising under the patent laws, citing Rev. Stat., § 629, cl. 9; § 711, cl. 5. The contention was held untenable, and in the course of the opinion the court said (p. 52):
“It has been decided that a bill in equity in the Circuit Court of the United States by the owner of letters patent, to enforce a contract for the use of the patent right, or to set aside such a contract because the defendant has not complied with its terms, is not within the acts of Congress, by which an appeal to this court is allowable in cases arising under the patent laws, without regard to the value of the matter in controversy. Act of July 4, 1836, c. 357, § 17, 5 Stat. 124; Rev. Stat., § 699; Wilson v. Sandford, 10 How. 99; Brown v. Shannon, 20 How. 55.”
Reviewing the decisions in Hartell v. Tilghman, 99 U. S. 547, and Albright v. Teas, supra, the court said (p. 53):
“It was said by Chief Justice Taney in Wilson v. Sandford, and repeated by the court in Hartell v. Tilghman, and in Albright v. Teas, ‘The dispute in this case does not arise under any act of Congress; nor does the. decision depend upon the construction of any law in relation to patents. It arises out of the contract stated in the bill; and there is no act of Congress providing for or regulating contracts of this kind. The rights .of the parties depend altogether upon common law and equity principles.’ 10 How. 101, 102; 99 U. S. 552; 106 U. S. 619.
“Those-words are equally applicable to the present case, -except that, as it is an action at law, the principles of equity have no bearing. This action, therefore, was within the jurisdiction, and, the parties being citizens of the same State, within the exclusive jurisdiction, of the *60State courts; and the only federal question in the case was rightly decided.”
The case of Keeler v. Standard Folding Bed Co., 157 U. S. 659, touches upon the precise question before us. In the course of the opinion, the court said — italics mine— (p. 666):
“Upon the doctrine of these cases we think it follows that one who buys patented articles of manufacture from one authorized to sell them becomes possessed of an absolute property in such articles, unrestricted in time or place. Whether a patentee may protect himself and his assignees by special contracts brought home to the purchasers is not a question- before us, and upon which we express no opinion. It is, however, obvious that such a question would arise as a question of. contract, and not as one under the inherent meaning and effect of the patent laws.”
A reference to the foregoing and other decided cases is contained in the opinion in Excelsior Wooden Pipe Co. v.Pacific Bridge Co., 185 U. S. 282. The suit was by a licensee authorized to manufacture and sell wooden pipe under certain letters patent, against two defendants, one of whom was the licensor and owner of the patent. The covenants of the licensee were, (1) to pay a license fee or royalty; (2) not to transfer or assign the license without the consent of the patentee; and (3) that the license might be revoked for failure to manufacture. While, because of peculiar conditions present in the case, the suit was held to be one arising under the patent laws, the court yet observed (p. 290):
“Now, it may be freely conceded that, if the licensee had failed to observe any one of the three conditions of the license, the licensor would have been obliged to resort to the state courts either to recover the royalties, or to procure a revocation of the license. Such suit would not involve any question under the patent law.”
The court, after reciting the facts in the case of Pratt v. *61Paris Gaslight & Coke Co., 168 U. S. 255, said (pp. 286, 287):
“It was held that the action was not one arising under the patent laws of the United States, and that to constitute such a cause the plaintiff must set up some right, title or interest under the patent laws, or at least make it appear that some right or privilege will be defeated by one construction or sustained by the opposite construction of those laws. That ‘section 711 does not deprive the state courts of the power to. determine questions arising under the patent laws, but only of assuming jurisdiction of cases arising under those laws. There is a complete distinction .between a case and a question arising under -the patent laws. The former arises when the plaintiff in his opening pleading — be it a bill, complaint or declaration — sets up a right under the patent laws as ground for a recovery. Of such the state courts have no jurisdiction. The latter may appear in the plea or answer or in the testimony. The determination of such question is not beyond the competency of the state tribunals.' "
The case of Bement v. National Harrow Co., decided at the same term as the Wooden Pipe Case, illustrates the doctrine. In that case the National Harrow Company, the patentee, commenced the action in a state court of New York to recover damages for the violation of license contracts pertaining to the manufacture and sale of a patent harrow and also sought to restrain the future violation of the contracts and compel their specific performance. If in consequence of the subject-matter the case was one arising under the patent laws, as it would have, been if the question of infringement of the patent was- involved, the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States was exclusive. The case was disposed of on its merits in the state courts and came to this court by writ of error upon the question as to whether the agreements between the licensor and licensee violated *62the Federal anti-trust law, and jurisdiction was entertained and thé Federal question was passed upon.
Finally, it seems to me the rulings made in the Morgan Envelope Case, 152 U. S. 425, are so apposite here as practically in reason to foreclose all controversy on the question. In that case suit was brought on three patents, one for an oval roll of paper, the other two for apparatus for holding the paper. The patentee sold the fixtures or apparatus only to purchasers of his paper, with the understanding that the paper would be subsequently purchased of the plaintiff company. It was held that the patent for the roll of paper was invalid, but the validity of the apparatus claims, or at least of some of them, was not challenged. The defendant sold the paper with full knowledge of the restriction imposed by the patentee. Mr. Justice Brown, after quoting from Chaffee v. Boston Belting Co., 22 How. 217, 223, says (pp. 432, 433):
“ The real question in this case is, whether, conceding the combination of the oval roll with the fixture to be a valid combination, the sale of one element of such combination, with the intent that it shall be used with the other element, is an infringement. We are of opinion that it is not. ... Of course, if the product itself is the subject of a valid patent, it would be an infringement of that patent to purchase such product of another than the patentee; but if the product be unpatentable, it is giving to the patentee of the machine the benefit of a patent upon the product, by requiring such product to be bought of him.”
Earlier in the opinion it was said (p. 431):
“The first defense raises the question whether, when a machine is designed to manufacture, distribute, or serve out to users a certain article, the article so dealt with can be said to be a part of the combination of which the machine itself is another part. If this be so, then it would seem to" follow that the log which is sawn in the *63mill; the wheat which is ground by the rollers; the pin which is produced by the patented machine; the paper which is folded and delivered by the printing press, may be claimed as an element of a combination of which the mechanism doing the work is another element. The motion of the hand necessary to turn the roll and withdraw the paper is analogous to the motive power which operates the machinery in the other instances.”
Nor when accurately appreciated is there any conflict between the principles so long and firmly established by the cases to which I have just referred and the doctrine upheld in the Goodyear Rubber Case, 9 Wall. 788, and Mitchell v. Hawley, 16 Wall. 544. In the Goodyear Case the facts were these: The right was conferred upon one Chaffee by license “to use the said Goodyear’s gum elastic composition for coating cloth for the purpose of japanning, marbling, and variegate japanning, at his own establishment, but not to be disposed of to others for that purpose without the consent of the said Charles Goodyear; . . . the right and license hereby conferred being limited to the United States, and not extending to any foreign country, and not being intended to convey any right to make any contract with the Government of the United States.” Looking at the terms of the license and the testimony in the record, the court considered the instrument only “to authorize the licensee to make and sell India rubber cloth, to be used in the place, and for the purpose, of patent or japanned leather.” The patent was held to be infringed because a right of use of the invention not granted to the licensee but reserved by the patentee or his assignee to himself, viz.: “the exclusive right to manufacture and sell army and navy equipments made of vulcanized India rubber,” etc., had been invaded by the defendants.
In Mitchell v. Hawley this was the controversy: A patentee of certain machines, whose original patent had *64' still between six and seven years to run, conveyed to another person the “right to make and use and to license to others the right to make and use four of the machines” in two States “during the remainder of the original term of the letters-patent, provided, that the said grantee shall not in any way>or form dispose of, sell, or grant any license to use the said machines beyond the said term.” The licensee constructed and sold four machines to persons who, as found by the court, had knowledge of the limited title of the licensee. After the patent had expired, and during an extended term of the patent, the persons to whom the licensee had transferred the machines made use of the machines in violation of the limitation, and the owner of the patent sued to prevent the infringement, and his right to do so was upheld. Stating it to be unquestioned that a patentee who had absolutely parted with- the title to the machine and with the use which the patent protected must be understood to have parted with all his exclusive right, and hence ceased to have any interest in the machine protected by the patent law, the court maintained the contentions of the complainant, on the ground that the rule just stated did not apply where the patentee did not grant the entire right covered by the patent, but retained a part thereof in himself, and therefore a violation of such reserved right was in. conflict with a right still protected by the patent and an infringement of the patent. The difference between the rule applied in that case and the doctrine of the many other cases which we have cited and which also exists between the controversy presented in Mitchell v. Hawley and the one here under consideration was simply as follows: (a) That which exists between the conveyance of all one’s rights covered by a patent and a transfer of only a part of such rights; (6) that which obtains between the ability of a patentee to protect the right which he enjoys under the patent law from infringement and his *65want of power on parting with all his rights under the patent to contract so as to secure rights never embraced in his patent, and to bring such newly acquired contract rights under the protection of the patent law. That the sale here in question was one of all the rights which the patent protected has, it seems to me, at the outset been demonstrated beyond reasonable dispute. I mean, of course, within the limit of my powers of understanding, since, looking at the so-called license restriction again and again with a purpose if possible to bring my mind to . assent to the view which the court tak«js of it, I find it impossible to do so. And in this connection it is to be observed that the real nature of the transaction is, in the argument of counsel for the Dick Company, stated to be directly the opposite of that which the court now holds it to be. Thus, counsel say:
“In the license plan in issue, the licensor, by limiting the market at which supplies may be purchased, is merely insuring to himself a royalty based upon the output of the machine. The licensor, by requiring the purchase of ink of him, in fact exacting a royalty (infinitesimal in amount) for every copy of the original produced by the mimeograph. The very nature of the work of these machines forbids the use of a fixed money royalty upon the work produced, since the money value is so small that the expense of the accounting would be prohibitive of such a method.”
A construction of the restriction which, by speaking of license and licensor, obscures the fact that the restriction itself states the transaction to have been a sale of the machine and its right of use, yet by the very force of the nature of the so-called restriction describes it as being in essence and effect but a consideration for the rights parted with, and thus brings the case within the doctrine of Wilson v. Sandford, Albright v. Teas, and other cases which I have referred to.
*66The distinction between the two rules and the absolute harmony and cooperation between them had been pointed out before the decision in Mitchell v. Hawley, and has been since so clearly indicated as to my mind to leave no room for contention or evasion. Let me quote from some of the cases. In one of the early cases, Bloomer v. McQuewan, 14 How. 539, after referring to previous cases which had marked the distinction between the grant of the right to make and vend a patented machine and the grant of the right to use it, the court said (p. 549):
“The distinction is a plain one. The franchise which the patent grants, consists altogether in the right to exclude every one from making, using, or vending the thing patented, without the permission of the patentee. This is all that he obtains by the patent. And when he sells the exclusive privilege of making or vending it for use in a particular place, the purchaser buys a portion of the franchise which the patent confers. He obtains a share of the monopoly, and that monopoly is derived from, and exercised under, the protection of the United States. . . .
“But the purchaser of the implement or machine for the purpose of using it in the ordinary pursuits of life, stands on different ground. In using it, he exercises no rights created by the act of congress, nor does he derive title to it by virtue of the franchise or exclusive privilege granted to the patentee. The inventor might lawfully sell it to him, whether he had a patent or not, if no other patentee stood in his way. And when the machine passes to the hands of the purchaser, it is no longer within the limits of the monopoly. It passes outside of it, and is no longer under the protection of the act of congress. And if his right to the implement or machine is infringed, he must seek redress in the courts of the State, according to the laws of the State, and not in the courts of the United States, nor under the law of congress granting the patent. The implement or machine becomes his private individual *67property, not protected by the laws of the United States, but by the laws of the State in which it is situated. Contracts in relation to it are regulated by the laws of the State, and áre subject to state jurisdiction.”
Likewise in Adams v. Burke, 17 Wall. 453, the court, speaking through Mr. Justice Miller said (p. 456):
“In the essential nature of things, when the patentee, or the person having his rights, sells a machine or instrument whose sole value is in its use, he receives the consideration for its use and he parts with the right to restrict that use. The article, in the language of the court, passes without the limit of the monopoly. That is to say, the patentee or his assignee having in the act of sale received all the royalty or consideration which he claims for the use of his invention in that particular machine or instrument, it is open to the use of the purchaser without further restriction on account of the monopoly of the patentee.”
Yet, again, in the Folding Bed Company Case, 157 U. S. 659, 666, this court, reiterating the doctrine, said:
“Upon the doctrine of these cases we think it follows that one who buys patented articles of manufacture from one authorized to sell them becomes possessed of an absolute property in such articles, unrestricted in time or place. Whether a patentee may protect himself and his assignees by special contracts brought home to the purchasers is not a question before us, and upon which we express no opinion. It is, however, obvious that such a question would arise as a question of contract, and not as one under the inherent meaning and effect of the patent laws.
“The conclusion reached does not deprive a patentee of his just rights, because no article can be unfettered from the claim of his monopoly without paying 'its tribute. The inconvenience and annoyance to the public that an opposite conclusion would occasion arc too obvious to require illustration.”
*68In view of the settled rule of this court, established by ' so many decisions, I might well refrain from referring to the English cases and the decisions of lower Federal courts relied on as persuasively supporting the doctrine now announced. But, nevertheless, I shall briefly notice the cases.
I pass by the English decisions relied upon with the remark that it is not perceived how they can have any persuasive influence on the subject in hand in view of the distinction between state and national power which here prevails and the consequent necessity, if our institutions are to be preserved, of forbidding a use of the patent laws which serves to destroy the lawful authority of the States and their public policy. I fail also to see the application of English cases in view of the possible difference between the public policy of Great Britain concerning the right, irrespective of the patent law, to make contracts with the monopolistic restriction which the one here recognized embodies and the public policy of the United States on that subject as established, after great consideration, by this court in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373. See especially on this subject the grounds for dissent in that case expressed by Mr. Justice Holmes, referring to the English law, on page 413.
So far as the various decisions of Circuit Courts of Appeals which the court refers to are concerned, as they conflict with the many adjudications of this court to which I have referred, it seems to me they ought not to be followed, but should be overruled. It is undoubted that the leading one of the cases which all the others but follow and reiterate is the Button Fastener Case to which I have previously referred, I shall not undertake to review that case elaborately, because in substance and effect the theory upon which it proceeds is in absolute conflict with the many adjudications of this court to which I have referred, and the reasoning which was employed in the case, in my *69opinion, in its ultimate aspect rests upon a failure to distinguish between the principle announced in Wilson v. Sandford, and followed and applied in the many cases which I have reviewed, and the doctrine announced and applied in Mitchell v. Hawley. In other words, the Button Fastener Case and the confusion which has followed the application of the ruling made in that case was but the consequence of failing to observe the difference between the rights of a patentee which were protected by the patent and those which arose from contract and therefore were subject alone to the general law. In 'addition it may be well to observe that the very groundwork upon which the case proceeded has been sincé authoritatively declared by this court to be without foundation. For instance, it will become apparent from an analysis of the opinion in the case that it proceeded upon the theory that the doctrine upheld'had been virtually sanctioned in previous adjudications of this court. Since the decision, however, this court, in Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U. S. 339, 345, has expressly declared that the doctrine had never been upheld by this court. Moreover, also, in the BobbsMerrill Case this court, in considering one of the cases principally relied upon, in the opinion in the Button Fastener Case — the Cotton Tie Case — expressly pointed out that that case had been misconceived in the opinion in the Button Fastener Case, and did not have the significance which had there been attributed to it.
But even if I were to put aside everything I.have said and were to concede for the sake of argument that the power existed, in a patentee, by contract, to accomplish the results which it is now held may be effected, I nevertheless would be unable to give my assent to the ruling now made. If it be that so extraordinary a power of contract is vested in a patentee, I cannot escape the conclusion that its exercise, like every other power, should be subject to the law of the land. To conclude otherwise *70would be but to say that there was a vast zone of contract lying between rights under a patent and the law of the land, where lawlessness prevailed and wherein contracts could be made whose effect and operation would not be confined to the area described, but would' be operative and effective beyond that area, so as to dominate and limit rights of every one in society, the law of the land to the contrary notwithstanding.
Again, a curious anomaly would result from the doctrine. The law in allowing the grant of a patent to the inventor does not fail to protect the rights of society; on the contrary, it safeguards them. The power to issue a patent is made to depend upon considerations of the novelty and utility of the invention and the presence of these prerequisites must be ascertained and sanctioned by public authority, and although this authority has been favorably exerted, yet when the rights of individuals are concerned the judicial power is then open to be invoked to determine whether the fundamental conditions essential to the issue of the patent existed. Under the view now maintained of the right of a patentee by contract to extend the scope of the claims of his patent it would follow that the incidental right would become greater than the principal one, since by the mere will of the party rights by' contract could be created, protected by the patent law, without any of the precautions for the benefit of the. public which limit the right to obtain a patent.
I have already indicated how, since the decision in the Button Fastener Case, the attempt to increase the scope of the monopoly granted by a patent has become common by resorting to the device of license restrictions manifested in various forms, all of which- tend to increase monopoly and to burden the public in the exercise of their common rights. My mind cannot shake off the dread of the vast extension of such practices which must come from the deoision of the court now rendered. Who, I submit, *71can put a limit upon the extent of monopoly and wrongful restriction which will arise, especially if by such a power a contract which otherwise would be void as against public policy may be successfully maintained?
What could more cogently serve to point to the reality and conclusiveness of these suggestions than do the facts of this case? It is admitted that the use of the ink to work the patented machine was not embraced in the patent and yet it is now held that by contract the use of materials not acquired from a designated source has become an infringement of the patent, and exactly the same law is applied as though the patent in express terms covered the use of ink and other operative materials. It is not, as I understand it, denied, and if it were, in the face of the decision in the Miles Medical Co. Case, supra, in reason it cannot be denied that the particular contract which operates this result if tested by the general law would be void as against public policy. The contract, therefore, can only be maintained upon the assumption that the patent law and the issue of a patent is the generating source of an authority to contract to procure rights under the patent law not otherwise within that law, and which could not be enjoyed under the general law of the land. But here, as upon the main features of the case, it seems to me this court has spoken so authoritatively as to leave no room for such a view. In Pope Manufacturing Company v. Gormully, 144 U. S. 224, the validity of certain stipulations contained in a license to use patented inventions came under consideration. It was decided that contracts of that character, like all others, were to be measured by the law of the land and were non-enforcible if they were contrary to general rules of public policy. And it was further held that even if contracts of that character were not void as against general principles of public policy, the aid of a court of equity would not be given to their enforcement if the stipulations were unconscionable and *72oppressive,-as are, in my judgment, aside from the rule of public policy, the stipulations of the contract here involved.
Indeed, when the decree rendered by the lower court whiéh is now affirmed and. which is excerpted in the margin 1 is considered, it seems to me the conclusion cannot be escaped that although in the mental process by which it was held that relief under the patent law could *73be afforded the contract was treated as a restriction upon the use of the machine covered by the patent, so inexorable was the- contrary result of the contract that in framing the decree it became necessary to give relief upon the theory that the gravamen of the suit was the violation of a contract stipulation in régard to unpatented materials.
For these reasons I, therefore, dissent.

 The Circuit Court granted a decree in favor of the complainant for an accounting of profits and damages and for an injunction restraining the defendants from infringing upon the said letters patent and “from direetly or indirectly procuring or attempting to procure, inducing or attempting to induce or causing any breach or violation of the covenant, condition or obligation now existing or which may hereafter exist on the part of vendeeá or licensees of said patented and restricted rotary mimeographs to the complainant by reason of the license restrictions hereinbefore set out and particularly from directly or indirectly making or causing to be made, or selling or causing to be sold, or offering or causing to be offered, to any person or concern whatsoever, any supplies adapted for use or capable of being used on said patented or restricted mimeographs with design or intent that the same shall be so used in viblation of-such license restriction; from directly or indirectly persuading or inducing such persons or concerns to purchase any such supplies not of the complainant’s manufacture and sale, designed or adapted for use in such machines for use thereon in'violation of such license; from advertising or causing to be advertised in any manner any supplies intended or designed for use in said rotary mimeographs in violation of such license; from-publishing or causing to be published any offer, promise or inducement designed or intended to procure licensees or vendees of the said patented and restricted rotary mimeographs to use or purchase for use in such machine supplies not of the manufacture of. the complainant in violation of such license, and from doing and performing any and all other acts or things designed or intended to persuade br induce said licensees or vendees to violate the condition or covenant binding upon them with respect to the use of said-rotary mimeograph and from in any way further interfering with the business of the said complainant of marketing said machines and supplies therefor under license restrictions limiting such machines to use only in conjunction with supplies made by or procured from said complainant.