46 ADULTERATED DRUGS AND CHEMICALS. 



COMMERCE IN PHENACETIN. 



United States letters patent grant to an inventor "the exclusive 

 right to make, use, and vend" his "invention throughout the United 

 States and the Territories thereof." This clause effectively restricts 

 to the inventor, his heirs, or assignees, the right to import his pat- 

 ented product into the United States when manufactured abroad. 

 According to certain decisions a it is held by some that if the article 

 is purchased from the patentees, tribute has been paid to the monopoly 

 and the right is therefore acquired to import, use, and sell the article, 

 bought elsewhere, within the United States. This privilege, however, 

 does not obtain when purchases are made from others than the owners 

 of the patent, because they have not then received any remuneration 

 for the article so purchased. b If these principles governed the phe- 

 nacetin trade the present strained situation would not exist. 



Another factor which has assumed considerable proportions in the 

 commercial world must be considered. The patentee has the right 

 and power to sell his product subject to the express conditions that it 

 must not be imported into the United States or sold here. He has the 

 same vested right to sell the product with restrictions and limitations 

 that he has to sell it at all. It is a matter of record that the patentees 

 of phenacetin expressly state on every package sold in foreign coun- 

 tries that its importation into the United States and resale there is 

 prohibited. Manufacturers of p-acetphenetidin specify on every 

 package that it must not be sold in the United States. The following 

 extracts from the decisions of the United States circuit court of 

 appeals c express the rulings on this point in a very succinct manner: 



1. One purchasing in a foreign country an article protected by a United States 

 patent, from persons other than the owner of the United States patent or his ven- 

 dees, can not import and sell the same in this country without infringing the United 

 States patent. 



2. One purchasing in a foreign country, from the owner of the United States pat- 

 ent, patented goods having marked upon them a condition that they should not be 

 imported into the United States, can not import and sell them here without being 

 guilty of infringement. 



Judging from past reports and recent developments, our excise laws 

 have been grossly violated by the smuggling of phenacetin, which is 

 clandestinely brought into the country in violation of our customs 

 laws, or is regularly imported, duty paid, and secretly sold to con- 

 sumers. Pharmaceutical journals recount the arrests of numerous 

 vendors of this illicit product. These smugglers have been appre- 

 hended in every section of the Union, and many litigations have been 

 instituted, numerous injunctions issued, and lines imposed. 



Cited in Dickerson r. Tinling, Fed. Kept, 1898, 84: 192. 

 &Dickerson v. Tinling, Fed. Kept, 1898, 84: 192. 

 cDickereon v. Tinling, Fed. Kept., 1897, 84: 192. 



