James Clark McReynolds

“ As United States patents grant only the right to exclude, our conclusion is not in conflict with those cases which sustain the power of the states to exercise control over articles manufactured by patentees, to regulate the assignment of patent rights, and to prevent fraud in connection therewith. ”

“ Indians are wards of the nation. Interstate commerce is left expressly to regulation by Congress, and the states can intermeddle only by its consent. In this case the advantages expected by the government are mainly the benefits to the public when the patent has expired, and, secondarily, the encouragement of invention. Pennock v. Dialogue, 2 Pet. 1, 19, 7 L. Ed. 327. The most that can be said is that a tax is a discouragement so far as it goes, and to that extent in its immediate operation runs counter to the government intent. ”

“ But patents would be valueless to their owner without the organized societies constituted by the states, and the question is why patents should not contribute as other property does to maintaining that without which they would be of little use. ”

“ The laws which are passed to give effect to this purpose ought, we think, to be construed in the spirit in which they have been made. * * * The public yields nothing which it has not agreed to yield; it receives all which it has contracted to receive. ”

“ The use made by the patentee may be not to make and sell the patented article, but simply to keep other people from doing so in aid of some collateral interest of his own. Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co., 210 U.S. 405, 422, 424, 28 S.C.t. 748, 52 L. Ed. 1122. National banks really are instrumentalities of the government and directly concern the national credit. ”