Keeler v. Standard Folding Bed Co.

Citations

• 157 U.S. 659
• 15 S. Ct. 738
• 39 L. Ed. 848
• 1895 U.S. LEXIS 2218

Syllabus

<p>One who buys patented articles of manufacture from one authorized to sell them at the place where they are sold becomes possessed of an absolute property in such articles, unrestricted in time or place.</p> <p>Whether a patentee may protect himself and his assignees by special contracts brought home to the purchasers is not a question before the court and upon which it expresses no opinion.</p> <p>The complainants were assignees; for the State of Massachusetts, of certain letters patent granted to one Welch, for an improvement in wardrobe bedsteads. The Welch Folding Bed Company owned the patent rights for the State of Michigan. The defendants purchased a carload of said beds from the Welch Folding Bed Company, at Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the purpose of selling them in Massachusetts, and after-wards sold them there and were still engaged in selling such beds in Boston. Held, that the defendants having purchased the patented articles in Michigan from the assignee of the patent for the territory included in that State, had a right to sell them anywhere within the United States, including Massachusetts, where the patent rights had been assigned to another assignee.</p> <p>The previous cases bearing on this point considered and reviewed.</p>