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United States v. Bell Telephone Co., 167 U.S. 224 (1897), is an 1897 decision of the United States Supreme Court that held that the United States lacked standing to challenge the validity of its issued patents “on the mere ground of error of judgment” in issuing them. The United States had standing to seek to invalidate patents, however, on grounds of fraudulent procurement and also as a defense to a charge of patent infringement. The decision operated for many decades as a bar to government efforts to seek invalidation of patents that it considered spurious until the Supreme Court limited ''Bell Telephone'', first to a limited extent in ''United States v. United States Gypsum Co.'',〔333 U.S. 364 (1948).〕 and then more broadly in ''United States v. Glaxo Group Ltd.'' ==Background== On February 1, 1893, the United States filed in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts a bill in equity against the American Bell Telephone Company and Emile Berliner, praying a decree to set aside and cancel (U.S. patent No. 463,569 ), issued on November 17, 1891, to Bell as assignee of the inventor Berliner. According to the opinion in the case:
The government made two allegations on which the circuit court passed: ::1. Bell delayed the patent application in the patent office for thirteen years. That was, under the circumstances alleged in the bill, unlawful and fraudulent. According to the government, this enabled Bell to enjoy a monopoly on the telephone because of Alexander Graham Bell's patent, and then when it expired an additional monopoly under Berliner's, thus prolonging the period of monopoly over the telephone. "So that, while the public has today, by reason of the expiration of the Bell patent, the right to use as it pleases his invention, such right is a barren one, and the telephone monopoly is practically extended to the termination of the Berliner patent, and this extension of the time of the monopoly has been accomplished by means of the delay in the issue of the Berliner patent—the long pendency of the application in the Patent Office."〔167 U.S. at 243.〕 ::2. Bell received two patents, one in 1880 and another in 1891, upon a division of the original application. Both patents cover the same invention so that Bell got two patents on the same invention, one of which expires eleven years after the other one. The patent commissioner did not have legal power to issue more than one patent on one invention. Upon amended pleadings and proofs, the circuit court on January 3, 1895, 65 F. 86, entered a decree as prayed for in favor of the United States. On appeal to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, this decree was on May 18, 1895, reversed, and a decree entered directing a dismissal of the bill. 68 F. 542. Thereupon the United States took an appeal to the Supreme Court. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States v. Bell Tel. Co.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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