Latest Important Cases holder, and that the right secured by the statute was thereby exhausted. The court also held that it was not the purpose of the law to grant the further right to qualify the title of future purchasers by means of the printed notice affixed to the book, and that to give such right would extend the statute beyond its fair meaning and secure privileges not intended to be covered by the act of Congress. In that case it was recognized that there are differences between the copyright statute and the patent statute, and the purpose to decide the question now before us was expressly disclaimed. . . . "The real question is whether in the exclusive right secured, by statute to 'vend' a patented article there is included the right, by notice, to dictate the price at which subsequent sales of the article may be made. The patentee relies solely upon the notice quoted to control future prices in the resale by a purchaser of an article said to be of great utility and highly desirable for general use. The appellee and the jobbers from whom he purchased were neither the agents nor the licensees of the patentee. They had the title to and the right to sell, the article pur chased without accounting for the proceeds to the patentee and without making any further payment than had already been made in the purchase from the agent of the patentee. Upon such facts as are now presented we think the right to vend secured in the patent statute is not distinguishable from the right of vending given in the copyright act. In both instances it was the intention of Congress to secure an exclu sive right to sell, and there is no grant of a privi lege to keep up prices and prevent competition by notices restricting the price at which the article may be resold. The right to vend con ferred by the patent law has been exercised, and the added restriction is beyond the protection and purpose of the act. This being so, the case is brought within that line of cases in which this court from the beginning has held that a patentee who has parted with a patented machine by passing title to a purchaser has placed the article beyond the limits of the monopoly secured by the patent act." The decision was a close one, McKenna, Holmes, Lurton, and Van Devanter, J. J., dis senting. The Court denied an application for a rehear ing on June 16. (See for Henry v. Dick Co., 24 Green Bag 206, 210; for Bathtub case, 25 Green Bag 33, 36.) Railway Rates. "Minnesota Rate Cases" — Federal and State Powers — Administrative En
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forcement of Interstate Commerce Act — Valuation of Railways — Apportionment of State and Inter state Business — Legitimate Earnings. U. S. The constitutional power of the states, unless Congress has acted in the matter, to regulate intra-state rates, even where the effect of such regulation, in so far as it applies to cities on the state boundaries or points within competitive districts crossed by state lines, might be to dis turb the relation previously existing between local and interstate rates and to create unjust discrimination between points in the state and those similarly situated in adjacent states, was sustained in Simpson v. Shepard, Simpson v. Kennedy, and Simpson v. Shillaber, decided by the United States Supreme Court June 9 (Oct. term, nos. 291, 292, 293; L. ed. adv. sheets no. 15, p. 729). The opinion of the court, deliv ered by Mr. Justice Hughes, was unanimous, with the sole qualification that Mr. Justice McKenna concurred in the result without offer ing a separate opinion. With respect to the constitutional division of federal and state powers, the effect of the decision was to reiterate the well-known prin ciple that the interstate commerce clause is not self-executing, and to allow to the states such powers, in the regulation of their internal com merce, as Congress by its own inaction has left them free to exercise after the passage of the interstate commerce act with its subsequent amendments. Consequently, though it may be that interstate rates cannot be regulated by Congress without imposing some requirements with respect to intra-state rates as they sub stantially affect interstate commerce, the states are free to establish maximum intra-state rates for interstate carriers. That such requirements may disturb the existing relation between intra state and interstate rates as to places within zones of competition crossed by the state bound ary line is no objection. Any question of unfairly discriminatory rates in violation of the inter state commerce act would be a question primarily for the Interstate Commerce Commission, not for the courts. On the question of valuation, the Court held that certain formula; for the determination of the value of the property of a railway do not furnish a proper criterion of the reasonableness of its rates. The effect of the decision was to hold that the valuation must not be swollen by the inclusion of abnormal or fictitious assets. For example, the valuation must not include assets of any extent which do not form part of the operating property of the carrier, or of that
