Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States
| Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States | |
|---|---|
| Argued November 15–18, 1943 Reargued October 9–10, 1944 Decided January 8, 1945 | |
| Full case name | Hartford-Empire Company v. United States |
| Citations | 323 U.S. 386 (more) |
| Case history | |
| Prior | 46 F. Supp. 541 (N.D. Ohio 1942) |
| Subsequent | Petition for clarification granted, 324 U.S. 570 (1945). |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Roberts, joined by Stone, Reed, Frankfurter |
| Concur/dissent | Black |
| Concur/dissent | Rutledge, joined by Black |
| Douglas, Murphy, and Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, 323 U.S. 386 (1945), was a patent-antitrust case that the Government brought against a cartel in the glass container industry. The cartel, among other things, divided the fields of manufacture of glass containers, first, into blown glass (allocated to Corning Glass Works) and pressed glass, which was subdivided into: products made under the suction process (allocated to Owens-Illinois Glass Co.), milk bottles (allocated to Thatcher Mfg. Co.), and fruit jars (allocated to Ball Bros. plus a fixed production quota for Owens-Illinois, and Hazel-Atlas Co.). The trial court found the cartel violative of the antitrust laws and the Supreme Court agreed that the market division and related conduct were illegal. The trial court required royalty-free licensing of present patents and reasonable royalty licensing of future patents. A divided Supreme Court reversed the requirement for royalty-free licensing as "confiscatory," but sustained the requirement for reasonable royalty licensing of the patents.