patent monopoly
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 332 U.S. 392 - International Salt Co. v. United States · 1947Most cited · 2,041 citing opinions
The appellant's patents confer a limited monopoly of the invention they reward. From them appellant derives a right to restrain others from making, vending or using the patented machines. But the patents confer no right to restrain use of, or trade in, unpatented salt.
How the Supreme Court has restated “patent monopoly”
Each Supreme Court definition of “patent monopoly,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “patent monopoly”
Court decisions citing the 10 opinions that defined “patent monopoly” — 7,231 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 10 definitions, chronological · 1913–1964
- ORIGINAL
The machines are patented, making them is a monopoly in any case, the exclusion of competitors from the use of them is of the very essence of the right conferred by the patents.
exclusion of competitors
Control over the supply of such unpatented material is beyond the scope of the patentee's monopoly; and this limitation, inherent in the patent grant, is not dependent upon the peculiar function or character of the unpatented material or on the way in which it is used.
The patent law confers on the patentee a limited monopoly, the right or power to exclude all others from manufacturing, using or selling his invention... The extent of that right is limited by the definition of his invention, as its boundaries are marked by the specifications and claims of the patent. He may grant licenses to make, use or vend, restricted in point of space or time, or with any other restriction upon the exercise of the granted privilege, save only that by attaching a condition to his license he may not enlarge his monopoly and thus acquire some other which the statute and the patent together did not give.
A patent operates to create and grant to the patentee an exclusive right to make, use and vend the particular device described and claimed in the patent. But a patent affords no immunity for a monopoly not within the grant.
The patentee may surrender his monopoly in whole by the sale of his patent or in part by the sale of an article embodying the invention. His monopoly remains so long as he retains the ownership of the patented article. But sale of it exhausts the monopoly in that article and the patentee may not thereafter, by virtue of his patent, control the use or disposition of the article. Hence the patentee cannot control the resale price of patented articles which he has sold, either by resort to an infringement suit, or, consistently with the Sherman Act … by stipulating for price maintenance by his vendees.
exhaustion upon sale
the United States offers a seventeen-year monopoly to an inventor who refrains from keeping his invention a trade secret. But the quid pro quo is disclosure of a process or device in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice the invention once the period of the monopoly has expired; and the same precision of disclosure is likewise essential to warn the industry concerned of the precise scope of the monopoly asserted
The means adopted by Congress of promoting the progress of science and the arts is the limited grant of the patent monopoly in return for the full disclosure of the patented invention and its dedication to the public on the expiration of the patent.
The possession of a valid patent or patents does not give the patentee any exemption from the provisions of the Sherman Act beyond the limits of the patent monopoly. By aggregating patents in one control, the holder of the patents cannot escape the prohibitions of the Sherman Act.
The right to make, the right to sell, and the right to use 'may be granted or conferred separately by the patentee.' But these rights become public property once the 17-year period expires. 'Any attempted reservation or continuation in the patentee or those claiming under him of the patent monopoly, after the patent expires, whatever the legal device employed, runs counter to the policy and purpose of the patent laws.