Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/27

1 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. VOL. X. APRIL 25, 1896. NO. 1. RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS AS APPLIED TO TERRITORIAL RIGHTS IN PATENTED ARTICLES, A RECENT decision of the Supreme Court of the United States has settled a question which has been much dis- cussed in the Circuit Courts. In Keeler v. Standard Folding Bed Co., ^ the Supreme Court has gone a step beyond its owji decision in Hobbie v. Jennison,^ and has held that one who buys a patented article in one part of the United States of a person licensed to sell it there may sell it as well as use it in any other part. The doctrine that a patented article once sold is free from the monopoly was applied to a case in which the purchaser bought in one State for the purpose of selling in another in which he knew his vendor had no right to sell. It was the case of a dealer in Massachusetts who knew that the right to use and sell the patented article there belonged to another, and yet sent to Michi- gan and bought the goods there for the purpose of resale in Mas- sachusetts, and sold them here in defiance of the licensee for Massachusetts. It had already been decided in Hobbie v. Jcnni- son, that the assignee of a given territory cannot maintain a suit for infringement against one who sells patented articles within his own district with the knowledge that they are to be used in territory of the plaintiff. The court followed its own decision in Adams v. Burke, made in 1873,^ and said that it was established by that case 1 157 U. S. 659, April 8, 1895. ^ 17 ^Vall. 453. 2 149 U..S. 355, May 10, 1893. I