162 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[February i, 1909. 



Court of Appeal, in an action by the Dunlop Pneu- 

 matic Tyre Co., Limited, ct al. <: David Moseley & 

 Sons, Limited, for alleged infringement of patents, 

 judgment was rendered in behalf of the defendants. 



Stating the case broadly, as we understand it, and 

 without going through all the various stages of 

 procedure, it appears that the jNIessrs. Moseleys' de- 

 fence was that since they made only certain of the 

 component parts covered by the Dunlop invention, 

 and did not assemble the parts, they were not infring- 

 ing the patent. Lord Justice Vaughan Williams, in 

 giving judgment on appeal, said that there could be no 

 doubt that the real question was whether the selling 

 of an article — meaning a component article — adapted 

 or intended for the purpose of infringing a patent was 

 an infringement of that patent. In his judgment it ■ 

 was not. 



The gist of the matter is this : If A manufactured 

 tire covers, B retaining wires, C inner tubes, and D a 

 certain type of rim, the combination of all these being 

 essential to the construction and working of the Dun- 

 lop-W^elch tire, no one of the four could be held to 

 have infringed that patent. Nor, according to the 

 court, should the burden be placed upon any particular 

 manufacturer of ascertaining the ultimate purpose to 

 which any indi\'idual purchaser might put any cover, 

 tube, wire or what not. It was such legal decisions, 

 by the way, that led the management of the Dunlop 

 tire company, later in the same year, to express their 

 satisfaction over the expiry of their basic patents. 



Now, if British inventors, holding patent grants un- 

 der their own laws, could not protect themselves from 

 competitors at home, whose defense was that they 

 manufactured onlv component parts and not a com- 

 plete device or apparatus, what would be the assurance 

 of an American or German inventor, for example, 

 holding a British patent, that he would be protected 

 under it, in the event of establishing a manufacturing 

 plant in Britain, against the same sort of competition ? 



But to go back to the Dunlop decision, it would seem 

 that only the assembling of the parts of an invention — 

 not merely their manufacture — constitutes infringe- 

 ment of a patent in Great Britain. Then why- should 

 not the assembling of parts in that country, regard- 

 less of where manufactured, be accepted as ''the work- 

 ing of a patent to an adequate extent" in England? 



RUBBER AND THE TARIFF. 



THE fact that the committee on ways and means of the 

 United States congress for some time past has been 

 giving "tariff hearings" is of no special significance, 

 in spite of the fact that the "platform" on which Mr. Taft, 

 last November, was elected president for the term be- 

 ginning on March 4 next, commits him to call a special 

 session of congress to deliberate upon the tarilT. Not 

 that any want of sincerity in any quarter is suggested, but 



the American nation for most of the time since 1789 has 

 been committed to the principle or theory of "protection," 

 and we cannot see that anything has occurred in recent 

 years to indicate a deviation therefrom. To be sure, criti- 

 cisms of any existing tariff schedule are to be heard in 

 any year, and sometimes from unexpected sources, but in 

 the last analysis the law continues to impose duties on 

 imports for the benefit of home industries. The schedules 

 are changed from time to time, of course, but one particu- 

 lar schedule differs from another about as the New York 

 City Directory difYers this year from last — in detail but 

 not in character. One firm drops out and is succeeded by 

 another, but it is still the New York City Directory — 

 published annually from a time antedating the American 

 Constitution. So with the items on the protective tariff 

 list. 



The opposition to the government from time to time 

 has exerted itself to gain votes by appealing to the people 

 on the ground that by adopting "free trade" everything 

 could be bought cheaper, but when the question of re- 

 forming the tariff was seriously taken up the campaign 

 argument has been offset by the assertion that by the un- 

 restricted admission of foreign manufactures the employ- 

 ment of American labor would be curtailed, and, coinci- 

 dently, the buying capacity of the average American citi- 

 zen lessened. We do not mean to go upon record as to 

 whether the prevailing sentiment is sound, but only to 

 point to what has happened in the past, and to the fact 

 that no recent revolution in the voice of the public has 

 been evident. 



The latest argument for a revision of the tariff has been 

 based upon the idea that the "trusts" have put up the 

 cost to the public of their products inordinately, to the 

 distress of the masses. This involves the additional idea 

 that the "trusts'" are monopolies, and it remains for any 

 "trust" of this character to be pointed out. It is doubt- 

 ful whether there is in America any large combination in 

 anv industry whose managers are not continually on the 

 alert lest the competition of outside concerns render them 

 unable to pay dividends on their actual capital. And if 

 any industrial combination should put up prices beyond 

 reasonable limits, it would only be to invite competition 

 from abroad to which no tariff schedule yet enacted would 

 hardly impose any restriction. 



The congressional committee lately busy with the study 

 of the tariff has devoted much time to hearing statements 

 as to the cost of labor in the United States and abroad in 

 given industries. This, however, is far from being the 

 whole question. Everybody in trade knows that, regard- 

 less of the cost of goods in any country, surplus products 

 are liable to come upon the markets of another country 

 at depressed prices, and a comparatively small volume of 

 such goods may demoralize trade to a great degree. It 

 really is on account of such possibilities that many items 

 in every "protective" schedule find place there. We take 

 it that the production of most important lines of goods 

 in the United States is so large that no possible compe- 



