29 F. Cas. 332 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania | 1861
The right of the Boston Belting Company to manufacture pipes or tubes is not disputed. They pay a certain tariff per pound for the right to use the patented process: the material thus manufactured by them belongs to them, and not to Goodyear. Any covenant between them and him that they will not manufacture certain articles, may be valid as between the parties, but it does not run with the rubber, like a covenant on land. Colley & Co., when they purchased their tubes are absolute owners of them, and may convert them into rolls for wringers to their washing machines, or put them to any other use. They might have bought belting or overshoes, or any other article made by the licensees of Goodyear, and converted the material to any purpose that suited them. I may purchase a tobacco pipe made of this material, but I am not bound to smoke with it, and may convert it into an inkstand. The agreement between the licensees that A. shall make all the pipes, and B. all the inkstands, gives neither of them a right to the interference of a chancellor to compel me to smoke with my pipe, or to put ink alone in my inkstand. They cannot oblige me to use, in subservience to their arrangements, that which has become my property.
But, say the complainants, although it is tme that a "tube” is defined to be a hollow cylinder, yet it is generally used to convey water, and is called a water pipe. In addition, the Boston Belting Co. pay a tariff of but two cents; whereas, the complaining corporation pay three cents, and therefore ought to have a monopoly of making rollers. The per-feet answer to this is, that the complainants have no patent or exclusive monopoly of making rollers of vulcanized rubber. Goodyear, by virtue of his patent, might have manufactured it all himself, and sold it for such price as he could get; but his patent gives him no power to control the use which persons who purchase may make of it. Vulcanized rubber may be applied to a thousand purposes, from a tube to a steam engine, but this patent gives no power to the patentee to parcel out his one monopoly into a thousand sub-monopolies. He may make any covenant he pleases with his licensees, and by that means may dispose of his special licenses to great profit, but he cannot compel the public to notice or regard such agreements, or the right conferred or reserved by them. If his licensees do not perform their agreements, his remedy is by action against them on his covenants, and not by recourse to a chancellor to restrain third persons who have purchased vulcanized rubber from his licensees from using it, when it is theirs, for any purpose they please.
The bill does not complain that the machines sold by defendants are made out of rubber purchased from one who has pirated the patented process, but that the manufacturer who made them did not buy them from the complaining corporations on whom Goodyear assumes to have the power of conferring a monopoly to apply his rubber to that purpose. But the patent conferred no such power on him or them. Every person who pays the patentee for a license to use his process becomes the owner of the product, and may sell it to whom he pleases, or apply it to any purpose, unless he bind himself by covenants to restrict his right of making and vending certain articles that may interfere with the special business of some other licensees. The contrivance of the patentee to destroy competition may be valid, but the covenant binds only the parties to it. If a stranger purchase the product from one licensed to use the process, he need look no further, and may use it for his own purposes, without inquiring for or regarding any private agreement of licensees not to compete with one another.
In conclusion, the right of the Boston Belting Company to use the process in their manufacture of belting, packing, hose, pipe and tubing, is admitted. Consequently that company may sell their manufactures to whom they please, without inquiring the purpose of
As a corollary from these propositions, it follows that Colley & Co. may convert any of these articles, when purchased by them, into rollers for their wringing machines, without infringing the rights of the complainants, whose arrangements to create a monopoly cannot aftect the right of Colley & Co. to do as they please with that which is their own. Injunction refused, with costs.