Task: songer_direct2

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

ROBB, Associate Justice.
Appeal from a decision of the Commissioner of Patents, refusing to allow certain claims covering a machine for manufacturing cigars, a number of claims having been allowed.
Claims 1 and 11 are illustrative of the several claims and axe here reproduced:
“1. In a cigar machine, the combination, with means for concentrating a bunch to give it temporary set without closing draft passages or producing exterior ridges, of means associated with said concentrating means for immediately applying a wrapper to the concentrated bunch.”
“11. In a cigar machine, the combination, with means for concentrating a bunch to give it temporary set without closing draft passages or producing exterior ridges, of means associated with said concentrating means for immediately applying a wrapper to the concentrated bunch, and means for transporting the bunch from said concentrating means to said wrapper-applying means, and the resultant cigar from 'said wrapper-applying means to a suitable delivery position.”
The claims were rejected on two references — Lacroix, No. 1,128,989, February 16, 1915; and Tyberg, No. 1,075,172, October 7, 1913. The Lacroix patent covers a cigar-making machine very similar to applicant’s,' while the Tyberg patent shows a machine for wrapping cigar bunches, which form of wrapping mechanism applicant employs in his ma- • chine. It is contended that applicant’s machine differs from the machine of Lacroix, in that the bunch is “concentrated” and not compressed ; that in a compressed bunch the draft passages of the cigar are liable to be closed, and the cigar, of course, rendered unfit for use; and that applicant has overcome this difficulty by concentrating the bunch.
The Patent Office tribunals have held that the difference between “compression” and “concentration” is the result of employing a less quantity of filler; in other words, that, if Lacroix should employ the same quantity of filler as is employed by applicant, his machine would do substantially the same work. In the machines of both Lacroix and applicant, the bunch is molded in a form to which heat is applied. The Commissioner said: “Applicant is not entitled to claims which read directly on an old device, which is capable of producing his cigars and will necessarily produce the same product if the right quantity of filler is used.”
A careful reading of applicant’s brief, in connection with his oral argument, has failed to convince us that the Patent Office erred in rejecting the claims involved, and the decision therefore is affirmed.
Affirmed.

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: B