The illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely. That they are not imaginary is now a matter of common knowledge, for, as the result of a case the Button-Fastener case decided some years ago by one of the circuit courts of appeal, which has been followed by cases in other circuit courts of appeal, to which reference will hereafter be made, what prior to the first of those decisions on a sale of a patented article was designated a condition of sale, governed by the general principles of law, has come in practice to be denominated a license restriction. ... As the transformation has come about in practice since the decisions in question, the conclusion is that it is attributable as an effect caused by the doctrine of those cases. And, as I have previously stated, it is a matter of common knowledge that the change has been frequently resorted to for the purpose of bringing numerous articles of common use within the monopoly of a patent when otherwise they would not have been embraced therein, thereby tending to subject the whole of society to a widespread and irksome monopolistic control.224 U.S. at 55-56.
