McLoughlin v. Raphael Tuck & Sons Co.

Last updated

McLoughlin v. Raphael Tuck & Sons Co.
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued November 11–12, 1903
Decided November 30, 1903
Full case nameMcLoughlin v. Raphael Tuck & Sons Co.
Citations191 U.S. 267 ( more )
24 S. Ct. 105; 48 L. Ed. 178
Holding
The Constitution prohibits ex-post facto law, so articles of a class made illegal by a statute that existed in the United States before the statute came into effect are still legal. The statute in question specifically immunized such items, so the lower courts were affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Melville Fuller
Associate Justices
John M. Harlan  · David J. Brewer
Henry B. Brown  · Edward D. White
Rufus W. Peckham  · Joseph McKenna
Oliver W. Holmes Jr.  · William R. Day
Case opinion
MajorityWhite, joined by Fuller, Harlan, Brewer, Brown, Peckham, McKenna, Day
Holmes took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

McLoughlin v. Raphael Tuck & Sons Co., 191 U.S. 267 (1903), was a United States Supreme Court ruling dealing with copyright. It dealt with the interpretation of Section 4963 of the Revised Statutes of the United States before and after the pertinent section's amendment in 1897.

Contents

Background

Originally, Section 4963 forbade any person from stamping a work as copyrighted while not holding the pertinent copyright. The section included a $50 bounty for the person who identified the illicit article and sued, with another $50 going to the government, paid by the printer of the material.

On 3 March 1897, the section was amended to also specifically forbid knowingly selling or importing articles falsely stamped as copyrighted in the United States, whether or not the article was subject to copyright in the United States at all. Importantly, the amendment also noted that these new rules did not apply to articles brought into the country before the amendment's adoption, preventing ex post facto law and observing Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution.

The case dealt with 83 books and pamphlets with false copyright marks that had been printed outside the United States, identified by the plaintiff, James McLoughlin. McLoughlin was suing for Section 4963's bounty. The defendants, Raphael Tuck and Sons Co., admitted that the marks were false, but proved that the articles in question had been imported before the 1897 amendment to Section 4963. Because the amendment provided immunity to articles imported before its inaction, the lower courts ruled in the defendants' favor. Appeals eventually moved the case to the Supreme Court.

Opinion of the Court

The lower court's rulings in favor of the defendant were affirmed by the Supreme Court. The Court questioned the quality of certain testimony in the case, but did not consider that relevant to the statutory question.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. did not hear this argument and was not party to the decision. [1]

Related Research Articles

The first-sale doctrine is an American legal concept that limits the rights of an intellectual property owner to control resale of products embodying its intellectual property. The doctrine enables the distribution chain of copyrighted products, library lending, giving, video rentals and secondary markets for copyrighted works. In trademark law, this same doctrine enables reselling of trademarked products after the trademark holder puts the products on the market. In the case of patented products, the doctrine allows resale of patented products without any control from the patent holder. The first sale doctrine does not apply to patented processes, which are instead governed by the patent exhaustion doctrine.

False arrest, unlawful arrest or wrongful arrest is a common law tort, where a plaintiff alleges they were held in custody without probable cause, or without an order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction. Although it is possible to sue law enforcement officials for false arrest, the usual defendants in such cases are private security firms.

In the United States, the exclusionary rule is a legal rule, based on constitutional law, that prevents evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights from being used in a court of law. This may be considered an example of a prophylactic rule formulated by the judiciary in order to protect a constitutional right. The exclusionary rule may also, in some circumstances at least, be considered to follow directly from the constitutional language, such as the Fifth Amendment's command that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" and that no person "shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 1943 term.

In American procedural law, a continuance is the postponement of a hearing, trial, or other scheduled court proceeding at the request of either or both parties in the dispute, or by the judge sua sponte. In response to delays in bringing cases to trial, some states have adopted "fast-track" rules that sharply limit the ability of judges to grant continuances. However, a motion for continuance may be granted when necessitated by unforeseeable events, or for other reasonable cause articulated by the movant, especially when the court deems it necessary and prudent in the "interest of justice."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988</span> United Kingdom law

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, also known as the CDPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that received royal assent on 15 November 1988. It reformulates almost completely the statutory basis of copyright law in the United Kingdom, which had, until then, been governed by the Copyright Act 1956 (c. 74). It also creates an unregistered design right, and contains a number of modifications to the law of the United Kingdom on Registered Designs and patents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution</span> 1791 amendment enumerating due process rights

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers focusing on criminal procedures. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fair dealing</span> Limitation and exception to a right granted by copyright law

Fair dealing is a limitation and exception to the exclusive rights granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. Fair dealing is found in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of Nations.

The Compulsory Process Clause within the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution lets criminal case defendants attain witnesses in their favor by way of a court-ordered subpoena. The Clause is generally interpreted as letting defendants present their own case at trial, though several specific limitations have been placed by the Supreme Court of the United States since this rule began.

Philadelphia Newspapers v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767 (1986), is a United States Supreme Court case decided April 21, 1986.

United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123 (1973), was an in rem case decided by the United States Supreme Court that considered the question of whether the First Amendment required that citizens be allowed to import obscene material for their personal and private use at home, which was already held to be protected several years earlier. By a 5–4 margin, the Court held that it did not.

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that an Ohio statute prohibiting anonymous campaign literature is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects the freedom of speech. In a 7–2 decision authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court found that the First Amendment protects the decision of an author to remain anonymous.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States free speech exceptions</span> Categories of free speech not protected by the First Amendment

In the United States, some categories of speech are not protected by the First Amendment. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Constitution protects free speech while allowing limitations on certain categories of speech.

Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14 (1967), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution is applicable in state courts as well as federal courts. Jackie Washington had attempted to call his co-defendant as a witness, but was blocked by Texas courts because state law prevented co-defendants from testifying for each other, under the theory that they would be likely to lie for each other on the stand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright Remedy Clarification Act</span> United States copyright law

The Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA) is a United States copyright law that attempted to abrogate sovereign immunity of states for copyright infringement. The CRCA amended 17 USC 511(a):

In general. Any State, any instrumentality of a State, and any officer or employee of a State or instrumentality of a State acting in his or her official capacity, shall not be immune, under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States or under any other doctrine of sovereign immunity, from suit in Federal Court by any person, including any governmental or nongovernmental entity, for a violation of any of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner provided by sections 106 through 122, for importing copies of phonorecords in violation of section 602, or for any other violation under this title.

Penguin Books Ltd. v. India Book Distributors and Others, was a 1984 Delhi High Court court case. Penguin Books Ltd. of England brought a suit for perpetual injunction against the respondents, India Book Distributors of New Delhi, to restrain them from infringing Penguin's territorial license in 23 books, the subject matter of the suit.

United States v. Lee, 274 U.S. 559 (1927), is a significant decision by the United States Supreme Court protecting prohibition laws. The Court held 1) the Coast Guard may seize, board, and search vessels beyond the U.S. territorial waters and the high seas 12 miles outward from the coast if probable cause exists to believe that the vessel and persons in it are violating U.S. revenue laws, and 2) the Coast Guard's use of searchlights to view contents of a vessel on the high seas does not constitute a search and thus does not warrant Fourth Amendment protections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright Act of 1870</span> Former United States law

The Copyright Act of 1870, also called the Patent Act of 1870 and the Trade Mark Act of 1870, was a revision to United States intellectual property law, covering copyrights and patents. Eight sections of the bill, sometimes called the Trade Mark Act of 1870, introduced trademarks to United States federal law, although that portion was later deemed unconstitutional after the Trade-Mark Cases.

Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the knowing use of false testimony by a prosecutor in a criminal case violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, even if the testimony affects only the credibility of the witness and does not directly relate to the innocence or guilt of the defendant.

References

  1. McLoughlin v. Raphael Tuck & Sons Co., 191 U.S. 267 (1903).