Intellectual Property Law for Engineers, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs. Howard B. Rockman
such as a US$5,000 fine levied on the companies, and a US$1 fine on the individuals. Commentators have noted that it is possible that, at this time, the Truman administration decided it required the undivided assistance of General Motors in fighting the ongoing Korean War and also in pursuing the Cold War against the former Soviet Union. Maybe the government at that time, decided that the support of large corporations was a higher priority than having electric mass transit systems operating in major population areas. Thus, it appears that there may have been economic reasons for the demise of electric streetcar systems; however, in the opinion of this writer, this natural progression was greatly assisted by the “conspiracy” discussed earlier.
In the 1920s, many American cities and towns were connected by a network of electric railroads and interurban electrified trolley cars. Within the cities, electric street railways, trolleys, and elevated trains moved large numbers of people easily and inexpensively. Between 1920 and 1955, General Motors, through National City Lines and Pacific City Lines, bought up more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities, allowing them to deteriorate and then replace them with rubber‐tired, diesel‐powered buses, which some writers say are more expensive, less efficient, and much filthier than electric rail systems.
Cities where electric rail systems were eliminated and replaced through this conspiracy to monopolize included New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles. The only large city in California where National or Pacific did not take over the transit company was San Francisco, whose transit system was owned by the city.
INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS
Mary Anderson
WINDSHIELD WIPER BLADE
Mary Anderson was a real estate developer, rancher, and inventor of the windshield wiper blade. She received her first patent, No. 743,801, in November 1903 for an automatic car window cleaning device that was controlled from inside the vehicle.
Mary was visiting New York City in the winter of 1902, and, while riding in a trolley car on a particularly icy day, she noticed that the motorman drove with both panes of the double‐front window open because of the difficulty in keeping the windshield clear of falling sleet. She also observed that the trolley driver often had to stop the trolley, and go outside to clear the window. The trolley’s front‐split, two‐panel window was designed for bad‐weather visibility, allowing the driver to move the panel comprising the snow or rain‐covered section out of his line of vision. However, the multi‐pane windshield system worked very poorly by exposing the driver’s uncovered face (not to mention all the passengers sitting in the front of the trolley) to the falling precipitation. Notably, the multi‐pane construction did not improve the operator’s ability to see where he or she was going.
Mary Anderson began to sketch her wiper device right there on the trolley car. She then returned to Alabama, and hired a designer to sketch a manually operated device to keep a windshield clear. She then had a local company produce a working prototype, consisting of a set of wiper arms made of rubber and wood that could be controlled and operated by a lever within the trolley operator’s reach. She applied for, and in 1903 was granted, a patent for the windshield wiper, which was directed to a lever inside the vehicle, which controlled the rubber blade on the outside of the windshield. The lever was accessible to the operator, and, when the lever was pivoted, the spring‐loaded arm and the wiper blade moved reciprocally across the outside of the windshield, clearing rain, ice, sleet, mist, snow, and other unwanted materials from the windshield surface while the operator remained wholly inside the trolley. A counterweight maintained contact between the wiper blade and the windshield surface. Mary Anderson’s patented device also included a feature where the wiper assembly was removable in fair weather. Similar devices had been made earlier, but Anderson’s was the first to work effectively.
Detractors argued that her wiper would be a dangerous distraction to vehicle operators. Also, during the first decade of the twentieth century, many cars did not go fast enough to require windshields. Even though windshield wipers became standard equipment by 1916, her patent expired before she obtained any royalties for her invention.
In 1905, Anderson tried to sell the rights to her invention through a noted Canadian firm, but they rejected her, saying “We do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale.” Her patent expired in 1920, just as the automobile manufacturing industry was beginning to grow. In 1922, Cadillac became the first car manufacturer to adopt Mary Anderson’s windshield wiper blade as standard equipment.
2 Brief Overview of the Law
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Throughout the rest of this text, we will be discussing how intellectual property rights are created and enforced under various statutes passed by legislative bodies, and how these rights are interpreted and enforced by the various courts of the United States and other judicial systems. Hence, before we delve into these topics, I thought it helpful if a brief overview was provided of how the systems of law emerged, and how the U.S. legal system, by way of example, is structured. This should make it easier to comprehend how the statutory laws and judge‐made laws are woven together to provide the tapestry that we know as Intellectual Property Law.
2.2 DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAW AND LEGAL PRINCIPLES
The laws of nature, or the natural laws such as the law of gravity, are universal laws, and cannot be changed by human‐made laws. Such laws would exist even if legislative acts were passed against them. A state legislature once tried to set the value of Pi as 3.000 to make calculations involving the diameter and circumference of a circle more convenient. Obviously, this did not work.
The study of law concerns human‐made laws governing relationships between people. The law refers to a set of rules and principles set up by society to restrict the conduct, and protect the rights, of its members. Each individual must control his or her behavior in such a manner that the rights of others are protected. As the urban societies of the globe grow, people interact with and depend on others to a higher degree, which requires more laws and restrictions of greater complexity to govern our behavior in a civil manner.
Laws began centuries ago as social customs and norms where it was proper for each member of the society to behave in a certain manner under particular circumstances. Tribal chiefs and, later, priests developed and enforced the laws, the latter based on laws of Divine origin.
2.3 DIVINE LAWS
Two codes of Divine laws are worthy of note.
The first is the Code of Hammurabi, created around 1750 BC, and it was based on the principle of an eye‐for‐an‐eye and a tooth‐for‐a‐tooth, based on one’s position in society. The early U.S. justice system was sometimes not far removed from this concept.
The Code of Hammurabi is one of several codifications of laws during ancient times. Hammurabi, the sixth Babylonian king, enacted the code, partial copies of which are engraved on a 7.5‐foot stone stele, as well as on various clay tablets discovered by modern archaeologists in 1901. The code consists of 282 laws, with variable punishments based on one’s position in society, and free man versus slave. The subjects covered in this early code include matters of contract, the terms of a transaction, the liability of a builder when a house collapses, damage to the property of another, inheritance,