United States v. Singer Manufacturing Co.
United States Supreme Court
374 U.S. 174 (1963)
Singer, the Italian company Vigorelli, and the Swiss company Gegauf (defendant), all competing sewing-machine makers concerned about losing market share to Japanese competitor Brother, resolved overlapping patent-priority disputes through cross-licensing agreements; Singer then pressured Gegauf, by threatening to disclose prior art that could invalidate all their pending patent applications, into separately assigning its own patent application to Singer so Singer could more effectively pursue Brother's alleged infringement in the United States. The government sued Singer for Sherman Act violations, the district court dismissed the case, and the government appealed.
Whether a patent holder's coerced acquisition of a competitor's patent application, arranged specifically to exclude a third competitor from the domestic market rather than to obtain rights the holder did not already have, falls outside the lawful scope of the patent monopoly and violates antitrust law.