Contracts — Validity — Pdblic Policy — Restraint of Trade. — A contract in restraint of trade, otherwise than as expressly excepted in sections 1674 and 1675 of the Civil Code, is against public policy, and void by the terms of section 1673 of the same code.

Id. — Business Combination of Powder Companies — Restriction óf Sale of Dynamite. — A contract for a term of three years, between several powder companies, providing that neither of the parties thereto shall make any shipment of dynamite powder to any part of the United States east of certain boundaries, and regulating the manufacture and sale of it by the parties in the territory west of those boundaries, under certain specified restrictions, and giving power to a standing committee to fix prices, regulate the manufacturing cost, and impose fines for violations of the contract, and providing for a termination of the contract if any other party or parties shall begin to manufacture and sell dynamite in competition" with the parties to the contract, is in restraint of trade, and void as against public policy.

Id. — Contract Dealing with Patent Rights — Business Combination — Control of Manufacture and Sale. — A trader may sell a patent right, and protect his assignee by an agreement to refrain from any acts which would lessen its value, and neither to use the patent nor to interfere in any way with the profit to be derived from it; but several persons or companies cannot legally enter into a business combination to control the manufacture or sale or price of a staple of commerce, merely because some of the contracting parties have letters patent for certain grades of that staple.

Id. — Patents for Making Dynamite — Combination to Control Dynamite Generally. — The fact that certain of the parties to a contract providing for the restriction of the sale of dynamite powder were the owners of letters patent for invention of methods or processes for making dynamite does not render the contract valid, where it is not confined to dynamite produced under the processes of the named patents, but refers to dynamite generally, and recognizes the probability of other persons, not having the patents named, entering into the business of making and selling the same commodity.

Id. — Action for Accounting — Means of Promoting Illegal Contract. — No action will lie in favor of one of the parties to such contract to compel. the other parties to allow an examination of their books and papers, and for a judgment for such sum as may he found due, under a complaint alleging that the defendants have made false reports of the amount of dynamite sold, and have refused an examination of the books, etc., the provisions of the contract sought to he enforced by the action being the very means established by the parties to the contract for the purpose of making sure their illegal agreements.

Id. — Action not Allowable upon Illegal Contract — Maxim.—No cause of action can arise out of an illegal contract; and the court will leave the parties to such contract exactly where it finds them, under the rule expressed in the maxim, Ex turyi causa non oritur actio.