Opinion ID: 1506575
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Bentonite Patent

Text: The Latex Patent did not go into use as it stood; some way had to be found to stiffen the latex enough to withstand the centrifugal force of rotation and the inspection; and it was also necessary to make the composition thick enough to be applied in squirt guns  elegantly called extrusion machines. The Bentonite Patent supplied both these qualities to the latex. The inventors added a gum which thickened it  ordinarily karaya gum  already known as a thickening agent (Patent to Dunham, No. 1,334,356 (1920)). They added a new substance, bentonite, which had the curious result of leaving it liquid under pressure in the squirt gun, and of thickening it at once when it was squirted out. Bentonite is a mineral powder in extremely minute particles, which are encased in a substance which will absorb an extraordinary amount of water, and which is therefore known as a hydrophilic colloid. The inventors supposed that this surrounding substance was organic and were probably wrong; but they understood the structure of bentonite and why it had the desired effect upon their sealing composition. The name is derived from large deposits near Fort Benton, Wyoming; and, although the mineral itself was apparently known by other names as early as 1905, it was not until 1915 or 1916 that it was much discussed in chemical publications, and it did not come upon the market in quantity until about 1919. By that time it had already become known as a plastic agent  at least that its power to absorb water made it valuable in rendering clay more easily workable  (Kraus No. 1,509,406), but that was very far from even foreshadowing that it had the qualities necessary for a sealing composition, or therefore from suggesting its use for that purpose. These inventors knew much more than that; they had discovered the qualities of bentonite we have just mentioned and they disclosed them in their specifications in a passage [1] (page 1, lines 84-90, and page 2, lines 1-19) of unmistakable clarity. Kirschbraun on August 16, 1922 (and therefore only a few weeks after the date of the invention in suit), did indeed file an application which resulted in a patent (No. 1,498,387) disclosing a mixture of crude or reclaimed rubber and bentonite as an emulsion of rubber. But even if that had antedated Dewey and Crocker's discovery, it would not have been relevant, for he did not use latex, and there is no evidence that what he got would have been an improvement over the old sealing compositions of the art; he neither contributed to the art, nor disclosed any knowledge of those properties of bentonite which would have led to any contribution. The defendant does not however rely upon these patents except as general approaches which narrow the scope for invention; its chief reliance is upon Newton's British patent of 1855 (No. 1053). Aside from the extreme unreality of supposing that a disclosure, nearly seventy years old and made at a time when the science of colloids was utterly unknown, really helped the art of the next century to combine latex with colloids of this character, an analysis of Newton's disclosure shows that it was altogether inadequate as an anticipation. He wished only to print or stain fabrics and he used latex merely as a vehicle for conveying it (sic) to and fastening upon the fabrics aforesaid any of the mineral pigments, lakes and dyes usually employed for coloring, painting and printing. To do this he recommended adding to the latex as it comes from the tree    pigment or color having previously been reduced to a finely divided state. Those which are not sufficiently fine may be ground in an indigo mill, or in any other suitable manner. There are several ways of giving the material thus prepared a sufficient consistence; one is to evaporate the latex; another is to use gums as thickeners. Newton disapproved of both: evaporation was very expensive, and gums would be washed out before the color could set. To remedy this    the Inventor discovered that this end might be fully attained by the mixture of milk    with the liquid juice (latex). In place of milk, albuminous substances, such as the white of eggs, may be employed. The only claim was for the use of latex as a vehicle for the application of coloring matter, and the means of rendering it more or less liquid, as above set forth. The defendant's argument that this is an anticipation is as follows. If the pigments of which Newton spoke are thoroughly mixed with a gum and the mix is then reduced to a finely divided state by being ground in an indigo mill, the equivalent of bentonite will result; that is, a substance will emerge which is made up of minute particles of mineral surrounded by a hydrophilic colloid. This when used with latex, as Newton recommended, becomes a complete reproduction of the patented sealing composition. To prove this Miller, the defendant's expert, made a number of experiments, using not only the pigments mentioned by Newton, but others known in 1855. He mixed these with a gum  tragacanth  and ground the mix in a colloid mill  incidentally a machine not known in 1855  and he then mixed the resulting product with latex. The specimens which he got he declared to be the equivalent of the patented sealing composition. Hauser, the plaintiffs' expert, whose attainments and honesty the district judge commended and whose conclusion he apparently accepted in the main, said that only two, or at most three, of these specimens were not already on the way towards coagulation which is prohibitive in practice, and two of these chanced to be made with pigments not mentioned by Newton. The judge also found only two of Miller's specimens free from incipient coagulation, though one of them  ultramarine  was not one of those which Hauser conceded to be free. As there is in any case no finding that more than two were not already incipiently coagulated, and as the defendant has the burden on the issue, we conclude that the rest were not equivalents of the patented product. Hauser swore that, although it was possible synthetically to produce a substance like bentonite from pigments,  it could only be done by pulverizing them in what is known as a ball mill for 72 hours. Considering the two specimens we have mentioned, we conclude therefore that this process is not invariably necessary; but that without it success is most unlikely. No doctrine of the patent law is better established than that a prior patent or other publication to be an anticipation must bear within its four corners adequate directions for the practice of the patent invalidated. If the earlier disclosure offers no more than a starting point for further experiments, if its teaching will sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, if it does not inform the art without more how to practice the new invention, it has not correspondingly enriched the store of common knowledge, and it is not an anticipation. [2] At times courts have spoken as though greater certainty of anticipation were necessary in the case of foreign patents than of domestic, but that distinction we need not press; and indeed we should in any case be slow to do so, except so far as the authorities require. Tested by this doctrine, Newton's disclosure was inadequate for several reasons. We do not rely upon the fact that he was not concerned with making a sealing composition, but only with finding a carrier for pigments effectively to print or stain fabrics; we shall assume that if his process would have uniformly resulted in the patented seal, it would have been a good anticipation even though it took a second authentic act of creative imagination to discover its fitness for the new use. The difficulty lies, not in his failure to anticipate the new use, but in what he actually disclosed and failed to disclose. Even if he had recommended the use of gum with pigments, and even if his direction to grind the pigments fine had been a direction to use the equivalent of a colloid mill, success or failure would have remained the sport of accident, as we have seen. It was hit or miss for the best of reasons; Newton was not aiming at the target. That alone would have been enough. But it was by no means all. To tell the art to grind the pigments sufficiently fine    in an indigo mill (what that was, the record does not disclose) must be read in its context. Sufficient for what? Sufficiently only to print or stain fabrics; which gave not the slightest inkling that one must comminute the pigments to colloidal size, the meaning of which nobody in 1855 could even faintly have comprehended. Again, instead of directing practitioners of his method to mix gum and pigment, Newton told them to avoid gums; true, that was one way to do it, but a bad way, for gums are liable to be washed out before the colour is entirely set. Indeed, the whole purpose of the invention was to remedy this; so that, instead of prescribing the method that Miller employed to make a synthetic bentonite, Newton pointed in directly the opposite direction. Finally, Newton did not suggest as a first step that one should mix the pigment and the gum, and as a second that one should grind the mix; but just the reverse: grind the pigment and mix the gum (that is, if one insisted upon disregarding his admonition not to use gum at all). It does not appear that this is not vital; i. e. that it is the grind of both together that produced such measure of success as Miller got at all. Thus, it is no parody to say that Newton's contribution to the invention was this: if one disregards his injunction to avoid gums; if one grinds a mixture of gum and pigment more than sufficiently to print or stain a fabric  i. e. sufficiently for a purpose wholly unheard of in 1855  if one inverts the order of the steps of grinding the pigment and mixing the gum, one may occasionally get the sealing composition of Dewey and Crocker, but the chances are strongly against it. For the foregoing reasons it seems to us that the claims are valid. The invention has had a most exceptional success; the business of one of the plaintiffs, which had been threatened with extinction by the paper gasket, has become stable; its sales have risen to several millions a year. Other seals, like rubber rings and paper gaskets, have practically disappeared; at an exposition in 1927 the American Chemical Society awarded a prize to the composition as one of the six outstandingly important developments in industrial chemistry; the spoilage of the contents of tin cans has been reduced very greatly by its use. It would indeed be absurd to rank the invention as a great pioneer such as come only at rare intervals and are the work of genius. Indeed, it is precisely those which probably need no patents to call them forth; the stimulus of profit has little or no part in their production. The patent law is aimed at animating a lower order of imagination and skill than that; more, it is true, than the ordinary rub of competition automatically brings out from competent workmen in the art, but not the superlative skills  at least that has been its uniform avowed purpose. Perhaps the system is outworn, but while it stands, it stands clothed with its history like any other statute, and it seems to us that not to recognize so substantial an achievement as this which has resulted in the improved preservation of foods and other perishable goods, would deny recognition where recognition most is helpful. These inventors did not move along a well-marked way; they struck out a new path which led to a goal that men had unsuccessfully tried to reach for many years. To say that for this they needed to look no further afield than the ordinary routineer, one must shut one's eyes to all the significant facts. Judgment affirmed as to the Latex Patent. Judgment reversed as to the Bentonite Patent.