145 Pa. 131 | Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Dauphin County | 1891
commonwealth’s appeal, no. 22.
Opinion,
Two questions are raised in this case. The first is whether the appellee is a manufacturing company. While it might well be so regarded, if the question were an open one, we have no doubt that it does not come within the class recognized by our acts of assembly relating to manufacturing companies; and the learned judge of the court below reached a correct conclusion upon this question, for reasons given in the opinion of this court just filed in the case of Commonwealth v. Light & Power Co., ante, 105.
The other question is whether any portion of the capital stock of the Philadelphia company is invested in patent rights, and for that reason exempt from taxation. The court below was of thé opinion that stock issued to the Edison Electric Light Company of New York, amounting to about forty-nine thousand dollars, out of a total capital of one hundred and forty thousand dollars, was invested in patent rights, and therefore exempt. This finding rests on the written agreement or license bearing date on the third day of February, 1887, and we are now to inquire whether the finding is sustained by the agree
Under this agreement, the licensee secures the right to use the appliances made under the several patents held by the licensor, for a fixed price, to be paid in money, in its own stock, or in both; and it secures nothing more. The New York company, on the other hand, retains its exclusive ownership of all its patents, an absolute control over the manufacture of its appliances protected by the patents, and over the use and disposition of every one of the manufactured articles which its licensee uses. We have just held in Commonwealth v. D. & P. Teleg. Co., ante, 121, following Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U. S. 501; Stephens v. Cady, 14 How. 528; Webber v. Virginia, 103 U. S. 344, that the exclusive right secured to the inventor by letters patent, is an incorporeal right, clearly distinguishable from the ownership of the instrument or appliance manufactured under and by virtue of that right; and that a lessee of the instrument or appliance acquires no title to or ownership in the patent under which it was made. In the
Judgment is now entered in favor of the appellant, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for the sum of one hundred forty-seven dollars, with interest and costs in addition to the judgment entered in the court below.
Tax on $49,000, capital stock, . $147.00
Int. at twelve per cent from Nov. 6,
1888, to ...
Attorney general’s commission,
defendant’s appeal, no. 32.
Opinion,
This is an appeal from the same decree which we have just considered, on the appeal of the commonwealth. The only question here presented is whether the appellant is a manufacturing corporation, within the meaning of the act of 1885, exempting manufacturing corporations from the operation of the revenue law of 1879. This question is disposed of by the opinion in Commonwealth v. Light & P. Co., ante, 105, filed herewith. For reasons given in that case
This appeal is dismissed, and the judgment affirmed.
Opinion,
The question presented upon this appeal is identical with that presented by the appeal of the commonwealth from the judgment in the case of Commonwealth v. Elec. Light Co., in which an opinion has just been filed. For reasons there given we reverse the judgment entered in the court below, so far as it relates to the taxability of the stock of the appellee, used to pay the rent for, or the price of the license to use the manufactured instruments or appliances furnished by the Edison company in New York to the Chester company, for use in carrying on their business in the city of Chester.
Judgment is now entered in favor of the commonwealth for the further sum, as follows:
Tax on $15,000, capital stock, . . $60
Interest at twelve per cent,
Attorney general’s commission,