The Ronan pioneer. [volume] (Ronan, Mont.) 1910-1970, 1917-09-21

~ ~ ~ OOx AxAxVA
DROPS $20,000,000
SPECTACULAR DECLINE FROM
sos PER SHARE TO
AROUND $50.
Suit of Minerals Separation Co. to
Recover Huge Sum for Infringe
Contributing to Fall of Stock in a
Year.
Many Great Falls people are
watching with interest developments
in the gigantic legal battle that has
been in progress for some time be-
tween the Minerals Separation COM
pany, an English concern which owns
the patents covering the so-called
flotation or bubble process of con-
centrating ores with a small quantity
of oil, and the Butte & Superior Min
ing company and other copper and
zinc mining companies in the west
which have been using the process
without license from the British
corporation. Butte & Superior has
lost every decision in the courts in
connection with the case so far, and
there are possibilities that it will
cost the company several million dol
lars before a settlement is reached.
The Anaconda Copper Mining COM
,1rt,r 1t1
der license from the Minerals Separ-
alton company in it's smelters at
Great Falls and Butte, and pays a
reasonable royalty for the use of the
process.
The Minerals Separation company
| has taken action against the Utah
Copper company in Utah, Chino Cop
per company, Ray Consolidated and
Miami Copper company. Two weeks
ago Judge Bourquin, in the federal
court in Butte, rendered a decision
against Butte & Superior, holding
that the latter company had infring
ed the patents of the Minerals Sep
aration company. 1t is expected that
an appeal will be taken to the higher
court at San Francisco, but in the
meantime the British company is ex-
pected to ask for an injunction
against Butte & Superior, and also an
injunction restraining them from u.s.
ing the oil flotation process any fur
Their.
The Minerals Separation company
has always claimed that its system
Of extracting metal from ore was
patentable, while the companies who
now must pay for their contrary
opinion in the matter went ahead and
used the system without securing
licenses from the Minerals Separation
company. But the Anaconda Copper
Mining company, Senator W. A.
Clark and many other big miners of
copper and zinc got licenses and will
merely have to pay reasonable royal
ties instead Of having to give up all
their profits secured by the use of the
system.
Something over a year ago, at the
top of the boom in spelter stocks,
Butte & Superior's 272,697 shares
sold at their top price of $105 per
share. Within the past two weeks,
following Judge Bourquins decision,
Q the stock sold as low as $3.50, a
drop of almost 80 points, or shrink
A age in selling value of the stock of
/, $22, 100000. The huge decline in
values is due to a gradual upsetting
of the spelter market, but also to a
large extent to the suit against the
company which has just been won
l. by the Minerals Separation Co.
The process of recovering metals
by agitating oil and water in man
s ner to collect the fine particles of
a mineral on the surface of the froth
has been the most spectacular de-
velopment in the mining industry in
S many years. 1t means the recovery
Of vast amount of mineral formerly
lost in the waste tailings.
The Butte e Superior officials and
I the company's attorneys have persist
emily maintained that the decision of
t the United States Supreme Court last
December UNFOLDING the patentabil-
ity of the Minerals Separation Co.
process confined the patent to the
use of less than one per cent of oil.
Their position would seem to have
support in the following excerpt from
the Supreme Courts decision:
J "The patent must be confined to
the results obtained by the use of oil
within the proportions often describ-
ed in the testimony and in the claim
of the patent as critical proportions
. amounting to fraction of one per
cent on the ore"
Immediately after this decision
was rendered the Butte & Superior
= people changed their process to the
use of more than one per cent of oil
: in order to avoid infringement.
Judge Bourquin in Butte now de-
cides, however, that increasing the
percentage of oil to over one per
cent is an evasion of the spirit of the
, patent and constitutes an infringe
ment.
1t remains to be seen whether the
matter will be carried to the Circuit
Court of Appeals at San Francisco, or
whether the Butte & Superior and
allied porphyry copper producers will