Opinion ID: 1478467
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Plaintiff's Patent.

Text: On the foregoing there is no serious dispute; beyond it we come upon the facts which separate the parties in this case. Plaintiff, Standard Oil Company of California, claims it solved the problem of sulphur removal by sulphuric acid without relatively high loss of gasoline by a patented process which defendant is using without license. Defendant, Tide Water Associated Oil Company, replies that Standard has no patent rights which need be observed for a number of reasons which constitute the issues in the present litigation. The District Court, in essential agreement with Tide Water, has found as facts from the evidence that The processes disclosed in claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10 and 11 of Patent No. 1,869,885 are not new in the petroleum refining art.    do not constitute an invention.    [and] are not sufficiently definite to enable a person skilled in the art to practice the teachings of the patent. The claims are set out in the margin. [3] From an inspection of the claims quoted, it is to be seen that the problem of sulphur removal is alleged to be effectively solved by refrigerating the sulphurized cracked distillate. Here is the core of the two principal issues. Standard claims the patent rights to this refrigerative process, and characterizes it as a means whereby (1) selective action, a term of its own devising, is induced and (2) polymerization of hydrocarbons is concurrently decreased. The selective action is the solvent action of acid upon sulphur compounds while under refrigeration. This dual action is labelled the Davis and Hampton two-step sulphur removal process. In terms of its claims the patent process circumscribes itself to the treatment of cracked motor fuel containing sulphur compounds and unsaturated hydrocarbons. [4] It sets out five coordinated phases of activity: (1) Refrigeration of the fuel, (2) selective action under refrigeration, (3) polymerization of sulphur or sulphur compounds under refrigeration, (4) separation of fuel from acid sludge and (5) redistillation to separate the fuel from the polymerized products. The amount of acid needed is described (in the claims already quoted) as such strength and quantity as to have the capacity [to achieve (2) and (3) above] and to effect a material rise of temperature of reaction unless restrained. The refrigerative procedure is by absorbing heat of reaction, at a maximum temperature sufficiently low to permit [(2) and (3) above] and below the temperature at which the non-sulphur bearing unsaturated hydrocarbons readily polymerize. It is admitted in plaintiff's brief that The method is not dependent upon a critical maximum temperature of treatment nor upon a critical strength or quantity of acid. From the same source we learn that among the variables admittedly affecting the required degree of refrigeration are: (a) Composition of the cracked fuel; (b) percentage sulphur content; (c) boiling points; (d) specific gravity; (e) extent of sulphur reduction desired or required; and (f) the permissible economic loss of fuel due to polymerization, which is determined by comparison of cost of required refrigeration with the comparable value of the motor fuel otherwise lost by polymerization.