Law Commons^™

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Common law copyright has reference to an individual's "right in his original, unpublished, intellectual productions," which are protected via the common law.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 …

Patent Law-Patentability As Affected By The Law Of Nature Rules-The Kalo Doctrine, Howard W. Haftel S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Kalo Company sued Funk Brothers for equitable relief in a federal district court, alleging infringement of product claims to a bacteria inoculant. The district court found infringement of the claims, but held them invalid for want of invention. The circuit court of appeals reversed, holding that the product claims were valid and infringed. On certiorari, the Supreme Court reversed, stating that the newly discovered law of nature, that is, that certain strains of each species of bacteria are mutually compatible, was not patentable, although a practical application of this law might be. The majority opinion also stated that for purposes …

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

A Review Of The New Trade-Mark Manual, Lenore B. Stoughton

Michigan Law Review

The United States Trade-Mark Act of July 5, 1946, is a statute designed to be of far-reaching effect. The appraisal of the statute must be made in the light of that fact rather than in the light of the confusion and disputation which have arisen as to the proper interpretation of many of its provisions.

One might have supposed that an act which had been subjected to intensive study and extensive revision over so many years before its final enactment would emerge in complete clarity. Such has not proved to be the case; and it should not have been expected. …

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.

Trade Marks--Assignability In Gross, Joseph N. Morency, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

After using the name "Mother Parker" in connection with a biscuit mix manufactured in Brooklyn, plaintiff, Heloise Parker Broeg, in 1934 opened a bakery in Boston under the name "Mother Parker's Cupboard." She operated this store and another in the same area until 1939, selling a line of bakery goods including bread, doughnuts, cakes, and cookies. In 1936 the trade mark "Mother Parker's" was registered in the United States Patent Office. Plaintiff and her husband opened an experimental laboratory and retail bakery in Peterboro, New Hampshire, in 1940 under the name "Mother Parker's Cupboard" in which they manufactured a complete …

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

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

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.

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 …

Trade-Marks: Monopoly Or Competition?, Leslie Davidson Taggart

Michigan Law Review

Three articles have appeared in the Georgetown Law Journal in which the thesis is asserted that trade-marks are monopolies in restraint of trade under the Anti-Trust Acts. Their publication seems to have been caused in part by the proposed revision of the United States Trade-Mark Statutes, which was started by a bill originally introduced into the House on January 19, 1938. The thesis of this present article is that a trade-mark in fact distinguishes one man's product from the products of his competitors, with the result that the consumer can make a choice among them.

Corporations-Where Name Of New Corporation Is The Existing Trade Name Of Another, Robert M. Barton S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In 1928 plaintiff changed its official corporate name from the "City Fuel Company" to the "Staples Coal Company," but continued to utilize the old corporate name as a trade name in advertising and the retail sale of fuel oil. It made little, if any, use of the new title, since the general public was accustomed to dealing with it under the name it had used for seventeen years. Defendant was incorporated in 1943 as the "City Fuel Company" and began to engage in a similar business in the same general trade area of greater Boston. Plaintiff, fearing deception of the …

Equity - Clean Hands Doctrine - Tradename Infringement - Relief Awarded On Condition That Complainant Cleanse His Hands, Craig E. Davids

Michigan Law Review

For twenty-six years complainant conducted a tailor shop under the name, "Dundee Woolen Mills, Custom Tailors." On the front of the store was the slogan "No Middle Man's Profit," though the shop was neither owned by a woolen mill nor conducted in any manner that eliminated the usual middle man's profit. Defendant for many years operated a nation-wide chain of ready-to-wear stores under the name "Dundee Clothes" and eventually opened an establishment in complainant's locality. Suit was filed in equity to enjoin the defendant from using "Dundee" in his business. The lower court decided that though complainant had come into …

Design Piracy, Maurice A. Weikart

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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.

Copyright In A World At War, Helen C. Stephenson

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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.

Copyright: Assignment Of Author's Renewal Interest

Indiana Law Journal

Notes and Comments: Copyright

Patents - Estoppel Of Licensee To Deny Validity - Restrictions On Licensee's Sale Prices

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff sued to recover royalties alleged to be due under a contract licensing defendant to manufacture articles covered by a patent owned by the plaintiff. The agreement provided that defendant licensee should not sell embodiments of the invention manufactured under the license at prices or under conditions more favorable to its customers than those prescribed by the licensor for its own customers. The defendant set up the defense that plaintiff "by reason of the price control provisions of the licensing contract and the invalidity of [the patent]" was not entitled to recover the royalties. The district court and the circuit …