Case ID: f_288/html/0270-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "ROBB, Associate Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Application of RUTHS.
    (Court of Appeals of District of Columbia.
    Submitted January 15, 1923.
    Decided April 3, 1923.)
    No. 1550.
    Patents <@=»25, 70 — Claims for utilization of waste gas from blast furnaces held not to disclose invention and to be anticipated.
    The decision of the Assistant Commissioner of Patents that two claims covering the utilization of waste gas from blast furnaces in internal combustion engines and in generating steam and storing it was anticipated by an article suggesting every point specified in the claims, except the storage of the steam generated,, which was covered by other patents, and that the assemblage of old well-known units into one plant did not disclose invention, affirmed.
    ©saFor other cases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes
    
      Appeal from the Commissioner of Patents.
    In the matter of the application of Johannes Carl Ruths for a patent. From a decision of the Patent Office, rejecting two claims, the applicant appeals.
    Affirmed.
    W. G. Henderson, of Washington, D. C., for applicant.
    T. A. Hostetler, of Washington, D. C., for Commissioner of Patents.
    Before ROBB and VAN ORSDBU, Associate Justices, and SMITH, Judge of the United States Court of Customs Appeals.
   ROBB, Associate Justice.

Appeal from a decision of the Patent Office rejecting two claims of appellant for the utilization of waste gas from blast furnaces for driving gas engines and simultaneously generating steam in one or more steam boilers and storing steam in a so-called accumulator or steam storage vessel, from which the steam is supplied as desired to one or more steam engines. Claim No. 1 is sufficiently illustrative and reads as follows:

“1. In power plants using a combustible fuel gas, e. g., blast furnace gas, the combination of gas engines being supplied with a portion of the said fuel gas, a steam generator being heated by the excess of the said fuel gas, steam-consuming, or steam-operated devices connected with said steam generator and a steam-storage receptacle filled with water under pressure and arranged between said steam generator and said steam-consuming devices.”

The principal reference relied upon by the Patent Office tribunals is an article in the “Power” Magazine on “Utilization of Blast. Furnace Gas,” in which is discussed the general system covered by the claims here involved. The article clearly suggests the use of blast furnace gas for running gas engines and the surplus for running steam generating boilers. In other words, this article suggests everything covered by these claims except the storage receptacle. Bach of the tribunals of the Patent Office reached the conclusion that, inasmuch as a storage receptacle functioning substantially as does appellant’s accumulator was disclosed in the Halpin (January 30, 1894, No. 513,922) and the Kitchen (May 23, 1911, No. 992,881 and October 22, 1912, No. 1,041,810) patents, it involved no invention to include such a receptacle in carrying out the. idea suggested in the “Power” article. The Assistant Commissioner, after directing attention to appellant’s contentions relative to the economy value of his combination, said:

“I am unable, however, to discover any room for doubt that the mere selection of these old plant units, all well known and their functions and purposes well known, and assembling them in a single plant, involved any. inventive concept. No doubt the plant possesses many advantages, but these are inherent in the devices or units employed, and engineers were entirely familiar with these facts.”

We are constrained to agree with this reasoning, and therefore affirm the decision.

Affirmed.