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intended to convey any right to make any contract with the government of the United States." Of this license, this court said (p. 799):

"It authorizes Chaffee to use it himself. It gave him no right to authorize others to use it in conjunction with himself, or otherwise, without the consent of Goodyear, which is not shown, and not to be presumed. It was to be used at his own establishment, and not at one occupied by himself and others. Looking at the terms of the instrument, and the testimony in the record, we are satisfied that its true meaning and purpose were to authorize the licensee to make and sell India-rubber cloth, to be used in the place, and for the purposes, of patent or japanned leather. In our judgment it conveyed authority to this extent and nothing more.'

The licensees were held to have infringed the license by uses not permitted.

We have already pointed out that in the Bement Case, 186 U. S. 91, it was said in respect of the power of a patentee that, in the sale of rights under a patent, "with few exceptions any conditions which are not in their nature illegal with regard to this kind of property, imposed by the patentee and agreed to by the licensee, for the right to manufacture, or use, or sell the article will be upheld by the courts." (Italics ours.) The question, as was said in reference to the copyright, is one of statutory construction. The kinds of property rights sought to be guaranteed and the terms of the two statutes are so different that very different constructions have been placed upon them. There is no collision whatever between the decision in the Bobbs-Merrill Case and the present opinion. Each rests upon a construction of the applicable statute, and the special facts of the cases.

The Paper Roll Case (Morgan Envelope Co. v. Albany Paper Co.), 152 U. S. 425, has been relied upon by the defendants. We do not question that case, nor anything it

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decides. But it has no application to the question here presented. This is manifest when that case is attentively examined. First, because here the ink and other supplies used in the operation of the complainant's rotary mimeograph patent were not made elements of the patent, as in the Paper Roll Case; and second, the toilet paper fixture in the Paper Roll Case was not sold with the license restriction that it was not to be used except in connection with paper supplied by the patentee. There was some evidence of a practice to sell the fixture only to those who used the patentee's paper; but this was far from proof of a specific license annexed to the sale of the fixtures that they were sold only to be used with paper supplied by the patentee. One who bought subject to no such restriction acquired the right to use the fixture with any paper. The opinion in that case is considered and analyzed in all of its aspects in the Button Fastener Case, 77 Fed. Rep. 288, 298-9.

We come then to the question as to whether "the acts of the defendants constitute contributory infringement of the complainants' patent."

The facts upon which our answer must be made are somewhat meagre. It has been urged that we should make a negative reply to the interrogatory as certified, because the intent to have the ink sold to the licensee used in an infringing way is not sufficiently made out. Undoubtedly a bare supposition that by a sale of an article which though adapted to an infringing use is also adapted to other and lawful uses, is not enough to make the seller a contributory infringer. Such a rule would block the wheels of commerce. There must be an intent and purpose that the article sold will be so used. Such a presumption arises when the article so sold is only adapted to an infringing use. Rupp & Wittgenfeld Co. v. Elliott, 131 Fed. Rep. 730. It may also be inferred where its most conspicuous use is one which will coöperate in an infringement when sale to such user is invoked by advertise

224 U.S. WHITE, C. J., HUGHES and LAMAR, JJ., dissenting.

ment. Kalem Co. v. Harper Brothers, decided at this term, 222 U. S. 55.

These defendants are, in the facts certified, stated to have made a direct sale to the user of the patented article, with knowledge that under the license from the patentee she could not use the ink, sold by them directly to her, in connection with the licensed machine, without infringement of the monopoly of the patent. It is not open to them to say that it might be used in a non-infringing way, for the certified fact is that they made the sale, "with the expectation that it would be used in connection with said mimeograph." The fair interpretation of the facts stated is that the sale was with the purpose and intent that it would be so used.

So understanding the import of the question in connection with the facts certified, we must answer the question certified affirmatively.

MR. JUSTICE DAY did not hear the argument and took no part in the decision of this case.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE HUGHES and MR. JUSTICE LAMAR, dissenting.

My reluctance to dissent is overcome in this case: First, because the ruling now made has a much wider scope than the mere interest of the parties to this record, since, in my opinion, the effect of that ruling is to destroy, in a very large measure, the judicial authority of the States by unwarrantedly extending the Federal judicial power. Second, because the result just stated, by the inevitable development of the principle announced, may not be confined to sporadic or isolated cases, but will be as broad as society itself, affecting a multitude of people and capable of operation upon every conceivable subject of human contract, interest or activity, however VOL. CCXXIV-4

WHITE, C. J., HUGHES and LAMAR, JJ., dissenting. 224 U. S.

intensely local and exclusively within state authority they otherwise might be. Third, because the gravity of the consequences which would ordinarily arise from such a result is greatly aggravated by the ruling now made, since that ruling not only vastly extends the Federal judicial power, as above stated, but as to all the innumerable subjects to which the ruling may be made to apply, makes it the duty of the courts of the United States to test the rights and obligations of the parties, not by the general law of the land, in accord with the conformity act, but by the provisions of the patent law, even although the subjects considered may not be within the embrace of that law, thus disregarding the state law, overthrowing, it may be, the settled public policy of the State, and injuriously affecting a multitude of persons. Lastly, I am led to express the reasons which constrain me to dissent, because of the hope that if my forebodings as to the evil consequences to result from the application of the construction now given to the patent statute be well founded, the statement of my reasons may serve a twofold purpose: First, to suggest that the application in future cases of the construction now given be confined within the narrowest limits, and, second, to serve to make it clear that if evils arise their continuance will not be caused by the interpretation now given to the statute, but will result from the inaction of the legislative department in failing to amend the statute so as to avoid such evils.

Let me briefly recapitulate the facts and the rulings based thereon. A machine styled a rotary mimeograph was covered by a patent. The claims of the patent, however, did not embrace the ink or other materials used in working the machine, nor were they covered by independent patents. The Dick Company, owner of the patent, sold one of the machines to a Miss Skou. The entire title was parted with; in other words, there

224 U.S. WHITE, C. J., HUGHES and LAMAR, JJ., dissenting.

was no condition imposed affecting the title or the uses to which the machine might be applied or the duration of the use. Upon the machine, however, was inscribed a notice, styled a License Restriction, reciting that the machine "may be used only with the stencil paper, ink and other supplies made by the A. B. Dick Company, Chicago, U. S. A." The Henry Company, dealers in ink, sold to Miss Skou, for use in working her machine, ink not made by the Dick Company. The court now decides that a use of such ink by Miss Skou would have been "a use of the machine in a prohibited way," and would have rendered her "liable to an action under the patent law for infringement," and that the seller of the ink was liable as an infringer of the patent on the machine because of the aiding and abetting of a proposed infringing use.

I cannot bring my mind to assent to the conclusion referred to, and shall state in the light of reason and authority why I cannot do so. As I have said, the ink was not covered by the patent; indeed, it is stated in argument and not denied that a prior patent which covered the ink had expired before the sale in question. It, therefore, results that a claim for the ink could not have been lawfully embraced in the patent, and if it had been by inadvertence allowed such claim would not have been enforcible. This curious anomaly then results, that that which was not embraced by the patent, which could not have been embraced therein and which if mistakenly allowed and included in an express claim would have been inefficacious, is now by the effect of a contract held to be embraced by the patent and covered by the patent law. This inevitably causes the contentions now upheld to come to this, that a patentee in selling the machine covered by his patent has power by contract to extend the patent so as to cause it to embrace things which it does not include; in other words, to exercise legislative power

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