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Book Reviews, Alfred Conrad, Daniel J. Boorstin, Charles C. Callahan, Arnold C. Rood, Robert R. Wilson, Ella Cooper Thomas, I. Maurice Wormser, Louis Prashker, Cornelius J. Moynihan

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Patent Monopolies And Free Enterprise, Myron W. Watkins, George W. Stocking

Vanderbilt Law Review

Public policy has long recognized the intimate relation between a dynamic technology and a well-adjusted economy. Without experiment, industrial arts stagnate. Rightly understood, invention is synonymous with improvement in the industrial arts, and invention comes about only from experimenting. Not every inventor finds what he is looking for, true enough, or is looking for what he finds. But unless, consciously or unconsciously, he is seeking a new way to do something or a new "combination of matter" he will never discover anything.

To encourage experiment and thus foster technical improvment is the avowed purpose of the American patent system. The …

Protection Of The Content Of Radio And Television Programs By Common Law Copyright, Harry P. Warner

Vanderbilt Law Review

Common law copyright has reference to an individual's "right in his original, unpublished, intellectual productions," which are protected via the common law. Common law copyright antedates the copyright statutes and can furnish the creative artist adequate and complete protection within limits. The common law rights are protected independently of the statute until the creative artist has permitted the contents of his work to be communicated generally to the public. As a matter of fact, section 2 of the Copyright Code expressly provides that statutory copyright will not annul or limit the enforcement of common law rights at law or in …

Contributory Infringement And The Combination Patent, Samuel Ewer Eastman

Michigan Law Review

The right of action for contributory infringement of a patent was forged by judicial legislation, and, as limited and subjected to opposing rules of law, has been tempered by that same process. The history is exemplary of the control over society exercisable by the courts according to their own individual economic outlook.

In tracing this history, buying agreements, price-fixing, agreements not to deal in the goods of a competitor, conspiracies to restrain trade through licensing, and other business arrangements subject to scrutiny under the anti-trust laws will be dealt with only incidentally. It is not possible to deal only with …

Taxation-Federal Income Tax-Taxability To Nonresident Alien Of Lump Sum Payments For Copyright, Myron J. Nadler S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Taxpayer, a nonresident alien author not engaged in trade or business within the United States, delivered certain literary works to American publishers under agreement whereby the latter were to copyright and publish these stories and reassign to the taxpayer after publication all rights except the American serial rights. Lump sum payments for each story were received during the years 1938 and 1941. No tax was paid on these amounts and a deficiency was assessed on the ground that they constituted royalties received for the use of United States copyrights and were taxable as ordinary income. The circuit court of appeals …

The Extension Of Trade Name Protection To Non-Competitive Areas

Indiana Law Journal

Trade Marks and Trade Names Note

Coming Into Equity With Clean Hands, Zechariah Chafee, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The preceding article proposed to examine eighteen differing groups of cases which are commonly supposed to present the clean hands doctrine as a maxim of equity, and then proceeded to consider eight such groups. Ten groups still require attention. The first five of those already considered fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of equity, and the next three within the concurrent jurisdiction, which is continued for a considerable part of the present article. After discussing suits for specific performance of unfair contracts and of illegal contracts, I dealt with miscellaneous tort suits by a person charged with crime. We now turn …

Compulsory Licensing By Judicial Action: A Remedy For Misuse Of Patents, Neal Seegert

Michigan Law Review

Having viewed the fundamental problems, it is pertinent to outline some of the alleged abuses of the American patent system as it operates in our modern business and industrial economy and to canvass some of the proposed remedies. First are abuses that might be termed attempts to extend the duration of the patent monopoly. These stem mainly from the procedural aspects of the patent laws. Foremost among them is the problem of long pendency of applications, particularly the dilatory tactics that are possible under the law, which postpone issuance of the patent, thus extending the time duration of the patent …

Copyrights--Duty Of One Owner To Account To Co-Owner For Profits From Use And Licensing Of Copyright.

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

File Wrapper Estoppel, O. M. Christensen

Washington Law Review

Patent law cases are rare in Washington. Thys v. Rivard, the most recent, concerned patent infringement and turned on two important rules of patent law: the doctrine of equivalents and the doctrine of file wrapper estoppel. Although the former of these rules had confronted the court on an earlier occasion, file wrapper estoppel was presented for the first time by the Rivard case. File wrapper estoppel, a rule of patent construction, derives its name from the Patent Office file wrapper containing the record of proceedings leading up to the grant of the letters patent. If, when the Patent Office examines …

Definiteness And Particularity In Patent Claims, William Redin Woodward

Michigan Law Review

To the uninitiated the professional jargon of patents, and particularly of patent claims, is somewhat mystifying even in the most ordinary cases. The profession likes to define the elements of apparatus as "means" for this, "means" for that and "means" for the other. Words like "plurality," "predetermined" and "comminuted" find remarkably frequent use by patent attorneys. And the habit of using out-of-the-way verbiage may lead the practitioner by force of habit to pass over a simple term like "sleeping car" in favor of a more elaborate phrase like "a communal vehicle for the dormitory accommodation of nocturnal viators." But it …

Trade Restraints--Anti-Trust Laws-Tying Contracts--Right Of Selection Of Customers, John F. Buchman, Iii

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, one of the country's largest producers of salt for industrial uses, held patents on two machines for utilization of salt products. It leased these machines on condition that the lessee purchase from defendant all the salt (an unpatented product) to be used with the machines unless salt should become available elsewhere at a lower price. The federal government brought suit under the Sherman and Clayton Acts to enjoin the continued observance of these provisions of the lessee. The district court granted the injunction and ordered that defendant, if offering any machines at all for lease, offer the same to …

The Doctrine Of Misuse Of Patent

Indiana Law Journal

Trade Regulation Note

Trade Names

Indiana Law Journal

Indiana Legislation, 1947

Consent Decrees And Res Judicata

Indiana Law Journal

Notes and Comments: Patents

Copyright Of Advertising, Mary Garner Borden

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Goods Of The Same Descriptive Properties, John M. Kinnaird

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Some Legal Aspects Of The Pan-American Copyright Convention Of 1946, Bryce Rea, Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Implied Warranties Of Non-Infringement, Louis Robertson

Michigan Law Review

When a manufacturer or dealer sells a product, is there an implied warranty that the product does not infringe adversely-owned patents? In other words, does the purchaser who is successfully sued for infringement have the right, without an indemnity clause, to be indemnified by the seller?

Many lawyers, especially patent lawyers, who are accustomed to advising the insertion of express patent warranties in sales contracts to take care of the matter, have answered this question instantly and positively in the negative, and it is quite possible that according to fundamental principles of implied warranties they are right, and yet all …

Recent Developments In Patent Law, Arthur M. Smith

Michigan Law Review

The framers of the Federal Constitution shared with Thomas Jefferson his "wish to see new inventions encouraged, and old ones brought again info useful notice." Their concern for the public welfare caused many, including Jefferson, to question the wisdom of using a limited monopoly to encourage such inventions.

Judicial Legislation-Patent Law-Has The Doctrine Of Contributory Infringement Been Repudiated?, John B. Waite

Michigan Law Review

When leaders quarrel the rank and file may flounder; and, in their recent decision of Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Investment Co., the justices of the Supreme Court have created confusion for lawyers. Four of the seven opinions clearly express intent to promulgate a new rule of law; two deny that intent; one is indefinite; and the purpose of the Court as a whole is left in doubt. Though the decision affects only the patent law, the process of decision concerns every lawyer.

Abstracts, Katherine Kempfer

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.

Trade Restraints - Resale Price Maintenance - Use Of Competitors As Agents, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Masonite Corporation, the principal defendant, manufactured and sold for construction purposes a patented wood product known as "hardboard." The other defendants sold, and many of them manufactured, building materials, several having patents that competed with Masonite. After a short period of patent litigation between Masonite and one of its chief competitors, a plan was devised and gradually extended to the other defendants, by which the latter were constituted the del credere agents of Masonite to sell its product at prices and according to terms which it should establish. The agents were not to use the trademarks of Masonite; and the …

Compilations As Subjects For Copyright, Mary Barton Jackson

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Copyright Of Statute Compilations, Robert M. Spragens

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Validity Of Conditions In Patent Licenses, John Barker Waite

Michigan Law Review

In discussing this subject one can still begin with the premise that in this country a patentee possesses the absolute right to preclude anyone, except the United States government, from making use of his invention.

Patents - Validity Of Contracts To Assign Employee's Future Inventions To Employer, Lloyd M. Forster

Michigan Law Review

The relative rights of employer and employee to the fruits of the employee's inventive genius have become increasingly important. In deciding these rights the courts have shown a marked tendency to favor the employee, possibly to compensate for the superior bargaining power of the employer. They have been anxious to limit the rights in the employer implied by the relationship of the parties. Contractual ambiguities have been construed in favor of the employee to a far greater extent than is called for by the rule of construction against the party drawing the contract. Unusual rights in the employer must be …

Patent Law - Conditions In Leases Made By Patentee To His Licensees - Suits For Direct Infringement, Brooks F. Crabtree

Michigan Law Review

Respondent manufactured and leased patented devices used in the canning industry for depositing salt tablets. One condition in the leases for these machines required licensees to use with the patented machines only tablets sold by respondent's subsidiary. Respondent sued in the district court for an injunction and an accounting for infringement of its patent by petitioner, who manufactured and leased infringing salt-depositing machines. Upon petitioner's motion to dismiss on the ground that respondent was making use of its patent to restrain the sale of salt tablets in competition with its own sale of unpatented tablets, the trial court granted a …

"Cola" Not Enjoined As Mark Or Name

Indiana Law Journal

Notes and Comments: Trade Regulation

The Law On Abridgment Of Copyrighted Literary Material, Harry W. Roberts Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.