the right to put into service any given invention. And Congress did not stop with the express grant of the rights to make and to use. Recognizing that many inventions would be valuable to the inventor because of sales of the patented machine or device to others, it granted also the exclusive right to vend the invention covered by the letters patent. To vend is also a term readily understood and of no doubtful import. Its use in the statute secured to the inventor the exclusive right to transfer the title for a consideration to others. In the exclusive rights to make, use and vend, fairly construed, with a view to making the purpose of Congress effectual, reside the extent of the patent monopoly under the statutes of the United States. Bloomer v. McQuewan, supra, 549. We need not now stop to consider the rights to sell and convey, and to license others to sell or use inventions, which rights have been the subject of consideration in the numerous reported cases to be found in the books. We are here concerned with the construction of the statute in the aspect and under the facts now presented.

The case presented pertains to goods purchased by jobbers within the District of Columbia and sold to the appellee at prices not stated, and resold by him at retail at less than the price of one dollar fixed in the notice. The question therefore now before this court for judicial determination is: May a patentee by notice limit the price at which future retail sales of the patented article may be made, such article being in the hands of a retailer by purchase from a jobber who has paid to the agent of the patentee the full price asked for the article sold?

The object of the notice is said to be to effectually maintain prices and to prevent ruinous competition by the cutting of prices in sales of the patented article. That such purpose could not be accomplished by agreements concerning articles not protected by the patent monopoly was settled by this court in the case of Dr. Miles Medical

Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373, in which it was held that an attempt to thus fix the price of an article of general use would be against public policy and void. It was doubtless within the power of Congress to confer such right of restriction upon a patentee. Has it done so? The question has not been determined in any previous case in this court, so far as we are aware. It was dealt with under the copyright statute, however, in the case of BobbsMerrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U. S. 339. In that case it was undertaken to limit the price of copyrighted books for sale at retail by a notice on each book fixing the price at one dollar and stating that no dealer was licensed to sell it for less and that a sale at a less price would be treated as an infringement of the copyright. It was there held that the statute, in securing to the holder of the copyright the sole right to vend copies of the book, conferred a privilege which, when the book was sold, was exercised by the 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.

Section 4952, Revised Statutes, a part of the copyright act, secures to an author, inventor, designer or proprietor of books, maps, charts or dramatic or musical compositions the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copying, executing, finishing and vending them. While that statute differs from the patent statute in terms and in the subject-matter intended to be protected, it is apparent that in the respect involved in the present

inquiry there is a strong similarity between and identity of purpose in the two statutes. In the case of patents the exclusive right to vend the invention or discovery is added to the like right to make and use the subject-matter of the grant, and in the case of copyrights the sole right of multiplying and reproducing books and other compositions is coupled with the similar right of "vending the same." So far as the use of the terms "vend" and "vending" is concerned, the protection intended to be secured is substantially identical. The sale of a patented article is not essentially different from the sale of a book. In each case to vend is to part with the thing for a consideration. It is insisted that the purpose to be subserved by notices such as are now under consideration-keeping up prices and preventing competition-is more essential to the protection of patented inventions than of copyrighted articles; and it is said that the copyrighted article may be and usually is sold for a lump consideration by the author or composer and that he has no interest in the subsequent sales of the work, while patented inventions require large outlays to create and maintain a market. To some extent this contention may be based upon fact, nevertheless it is well known that in many instances the compensation an author receives is the royalties upon sales of his book or a percentage of profits, which makes it desirable that he shall have the protection of devices intended to keep up the market and prevent the cutting of prices. But these considerations could have had little weight in framing the acts. In providing for grants of exclusive rights and privileges to inventors and authors we think Congress had no intention to use the term "vend" in one sense in the patent act and "vending" in another in the copyright law. Protection in the exclusive right to sell is aimed at in both instances, and the terms used in the statutes are to all intents the same.

It is apparent that the principal difference in the enact

ments lies in the presence of the word "use" in the patent statute and its absence in the copyright law. An inventor has not only the exclusive right to make and vend his invention or discovery, but he has the like right to use it, and when a case comes fairly within the grant of the right to use, that use should be protected by all means properly within the scope of the statute. In Bement v. National Harrow Co., 186 U. S. 70, the owner of a patent granted a license to the defendant to manufacture and sell harrows embodied in the invention covered by the patent. The license provided for the payment to the licensor by the licensee of a royalty of one dollar for each harrow or frame sold and stipulated that the licensee was not to sell to any person for a less price than that named, and that the license was subject to change from time to time. The case was one arising upon license agreements, originating in a state court, and did not involve the construction of the patent act in the circumstances now disclosed.

Chief reliance, however, of the plaintiff in this case is upon the recent decision of this court in Henry v. Dick Co., 224 U. S. 1. An examination of the opinion in that case shows that the restriction was sustained because of the right to use the machine granted in the patent statute, distinguishing in that respect the patent from the copyright act. In that case a patented mimeograph had been sold which bore an inscription in the form of a notice that the machine was sold with the license restriction that it might only be used with stencil, ink and other supplies made by the A. B. Dick Company, the owners of the patent. The alleged infringer sold to the purchaser of the mimeograph a can of ink suitable for use with the machine with full knowledge of the restriction and with the expectation that the ink sold would be used in connection with the machine. It is expressly stated in the opinion that the machine was sold at cost or less and that the patentee depended upon the profit realized from the sale

of the non-patented articles to be used with the machine for the profit which he expected to realize from his invention (224 U. S. 26). After commenting upon the copyright statutes and the resemblance between the author's right to vend copies of his work and the patentee's right to vend the patented thing, it was said (p. 46):

"To the inventor, by § 4884, Revised Statutes, there is granted 'the exclusive right to make, use and vend the invention or discovery.' This grant, as defined in Bloomer v. McQuewan, 14 How. 539, 549, 'consists altogether in the right to exclude every one from making, using or vending the thing patented.' Thus, there are several substantive rights, and each is the subject of subdivision, so that one person may be permitted to make, but neither to sell nor use the patented thing. To another may be conveyed the right to sell, but within a limited area, or for a particular use, while to another the patentee may grant only the right to make and use, or to use only for specific purposes. Adams v. Burke, 17 Wall. 453; Mitchell v. Hawley, 16 Wall. 544; Rubber Co. v. Goodyear, 9 Wall. 788, 799." (Italics in the original opinion.)

That case was distinguished from Bobbs-Merrill v. Straus, supra, construing the copyright act, because of the difference in the terms of the copyright and patent statutes, the patent act conferring not only the right to make and sell, but the exclusive right to use the subjectmatter of the patent. It was under the right to use that the license notice in question was sustained, and it is obvious that the notice in that case dealt with the use of the machine and limited it to use only with the paper, ink and supplies of the manufacture of the patentee. While the title was transferred, it was a qualified title, giving a right to use the machine only with certain specified supplies. It was said in the Dick Case (p. 47) that "there is no collision whatever between the decision in the BobbsMerrill Case and the present opinion. Each rests upon a