Law Commons^™

Patents - Misuse Doctrine - Exclusive Distributorship Agreements As Patent Misuse, Howard N. Nemerovski

Michigan Law Review

In a suit for infringement of a storm window patent, defendant claimed that relief should be denied because plaintiff allegedly misused the suit patent by requiring its wholesale distributors to maintain sales organizations devoted exclusively to the sale of plaintiff's windows, and by restraining the distributors from offering merchandise for sale in competition with any article manufactured or distributed by plaintiff. The patent did not comprise an element of the distributor agreements, but was mentioned therein. The trial court denied relief, sustaining the defense of misuse of the suit patent. On appeal, held, affirmed. A patentee's right does not …

Vaughan: The United States Patent System. Legal And Economic Conflicts In American Patent History, Bernard F. Garvey

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The United States Patent System. Legal and Economic Conflicts in American Patent History. By Floyd L. Vaughan.

Regulation Of Business - Sherman Act - Patent Pool Agreements Which Restricts Fields Of Use, Martin F. Roston S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

DeVlieg, the owner of three major patents in the machine tool field, licensed his inventions to several machine tool manufacturers. Subsequently, he and the licensees formed a new corporation, Associated Patents, Inc., a patent holding company, to which he assigned his patents. Each party to the agreement owned an equal share of API. The agreement contained provisions for the granting back to API of any improvement patents acquired by the parties and it also restricted the use of the patents by each party to carefully circumscribed fields of use. Held, a patent pool agreement restricting fields of use is …

Patent Office Performance In Perspective, George E. Frost

Michigan Law Review

" the only patent that is valid is one which this Court has not been able to get its hands on."

Justice Jackson's note of despair reflects all too accurately the treatment patents have seemingly received in the hands of the courts since the "new trend" of recent years. It has become the legal fashion to characterize letters patent as something the Patent Office issues and the courts strike down. Statistical support for this conclusion can be readily assembled.