PRICE RESTRICTION ON THE RE-SALE OF CHATTELS.

This article focuses on the price restriction on the re-sale of chattles. At common law limited restrictions as an incident to the sale of chattels are permissible. The accepted test is that such restrictions must not be wider than the protection of the parties thereto demands nor so wide as to affect the public injuriously. Thus a single contract determining the price of the re-sale of chattels, not dealing with all or a material portion of all such chattels in commerce, might, if conditions warranted it, be lawful. This common law principle is not peculiar to "trade-secret" articles but is equally applicable to any chattel property. Until recently, however, the doctrine was generally accepted that the owner of "trade-secret" articles had special rights to impose restrictions upon the re-sale of his products. The acceptance of this doctrine result!ed both from an apparent similarity between the conditions surrounding articles manufactured under trade secrets and those manufactured under patents, and from an apparent analogy between contracts relating to the sale of such articles and contracts relating to the sale of inventions, compositions, railroad tickets, trading stamps, and trade secrets themselves.