Milford chronicle., 1883-03-02
raE WILLIAMS vs.. THE ALDEN PATENTS.
By special request we reproduce the following
letter which created much interest during the agi-
tation Of infringement suits last fall.
Grand Rapids. Mich, april 2, 1877.
MEssRs S. E. & J. NJ. SPROUT,

. ~ + soAe1 ~ L. ~ - 2As 81 AAQA
MUNCY, PENN'A:
= GENTS: Your letter of March 29th
came to hand this morning We ar
too busy now to write out a full ant
well digested opinion in the mat eF o
, the Alden & Co. Patent, but will Civ,
you such points as will enable you h
ascertain aud get at all the facts. Oul
Supreme Court sits at Lansing tO-mOr
low. and our Mr.. Taggart, who hai
the entire charge of Williams matters
will be absent for considerable pOr
tiun of this month. The points against
the Alden claims are as follows;
l. Alden was not the original and
flrt inventor of the process of drying
fruet ETC., by heated air.
Iu August, 1853 long before the first
Alden Patent, there was publishe a
description of fruit drier in The
CultivatOr monthly publication
published in Albany, N. Y. so similar
to Alden's Fruit Drier that Alden's
Patent, if valil at all must have been
Of very limited scope and confined to
| imnaterial points, none of which are
contained in the Williams Drier. We
have in our possession the book, and
send herewith a crude tracing from
I the Eul VI AllG DIitI uGSGIlDtils II utdl
( be found with full description on page
253 of the bould volume of the "Culti-
vator." On the back of the volume
are these words, "Third series, Vol. 2.
1t will be seen from the cut that an up
right tube with moving platforms,
endless chains, &c, are very similar
to Alden's.
2. On February 26, 1851, Francis H.
Smith. of Baltimore, Md, obtained
patent OH drier, which al althOugh of
very different construction, embodies
the principle Of drying fruit and other
substances, by means of a current of
air, artifieialy heated.
8. On the 18th day of April, A. d.
1854, the French Government issued
patent to one ID. Del0caur. for an in.
yentiOn similar il not the exact coun-
terHart of the first Alden machine.
Now the Alden patents whicn they
claim to have been infringed. are fl irst
twn reissues derived from the first
patent issued to him, aud they can
contain no new matter. Numerous
other patents were issued prior to the
Alden patent, for fruit differs, both in |
this country and England, to which il |
is not neces4 4ary to refer, except to show |
that the idea of drying truit by means /
of heated air was not hew at the time /
of the fiIst Alden patent, and that the
patent with its reissues, if valid at all .
is confined to the particular devices
named in the patent.
On December 9TH, 1871, Alden OBJ
tanned patent in which heintrOduces
fruit &c at the bottom of the tube at
the point of highest temperature and
uses water to be converted into steam
to increase the moisture and takes the
dried fruit out ut the top of the tube,
&c. This he claims as a process. If
this Is the subject of a-patent when all
the dTiers by simply reversing the
of the chain would produce
the same result it must be limited to
the exact process described, and Mr.
Williams certainly does not folllw the
Alien process He introduces the fruit
at the highest temperature, thereby
producing, according to Mr.. Alden's
theory, just what Alden seeks to avoid,
and does avoid by the patent last re-
ferred to. And again, Mr.. Alden is
not the first in the field, for Marshall
p. Smith in Letters Patent, No.
la7,4 All, dated September 18th, 1870,
and Te-issued March 5th, 1872, refers
to the reversing the operation of his
which would produce the
same result as claimed by Alden, ex-
eept the water Alden proposes to dry
iRtO the fruit The claim in Mr..
Alden's Uatent for saccharified fruit
we believe has no foundation what
ever. We have made quite extended
inquiries and find the same opinions
everywhere, that all fruit quickly
dried by artificial heat, even fruit
IN ~. a f,ahEov,,l I'll /
contains the same properties. Mr..
A lden does not point out which, or ]
how many Ofhis pretended inventions
have been infriuged, in his bill or
Mr.. Williams has a patent in due (
form of law, which is a strong pre-
in his favor, as has been de-
,ided by the Court.
We conclude lst. Alden's first
patent and the re-issges growing out
If it are either wholly void or of such
limited scope that Williams in no way
nfringes upon them.
End. That his reversible process
vas anticipated by the Smith patent ,
+ it was ever of any value, and that
,ven though Alden has valid claim {
IN it, Mr.. Williams does not infringe. {
3rd. That the claims on saccharified O.,
ruit, &c, is not maintainable, that it
s absolutely impossible to show that
he fruit dried by Alden's process is
my different from that dried by driers
n use many years before he made his
pretended invention. About this (
here can be no doubt,
Do the Alden Company intend to
Mr.. Williams, or any other
,arties for the infringements on Alden z
,atents? We think not for reason.
N July, 1872, the Alden Fruit Pre-
erving Co., of New York, filed bill
n the U. s. Circuit Court for the
jouthern District of New York, a
gainst Msrshall P. Smith for infringe B
nent of the identical Patents mem n
iOned In the bill against Williams in
ur U. s. Court. On the 18th day of 81
august, 1872, Smith filed his answer to :
be bill, alleging among other things
hat the Alden Patents were void for
yant of novelty, referring to the
'rench patent hereinbefore named &
D the patents of Francis II Smith and r
everal other patents both in the us.
nd Great Britain (bnt did not refer to "a
he one in the "Cultivator" as that =
'as undoubtedly unknown to them at
ne time), The result was the Alden
Ompany Immediately refrained from
le prosecution of the suit and conf e.
rOmised with Smith. as Mr.. Smith re
ates in his circular published at
RltimOre, In 1873 and which we "a