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portion of his specification hereinbefore quoted. At least, he plainly states how it may be done.

The Urtel reference shows a sleeve-valve motor with a different arrangement of ports than that shown in the Knight reference, but shows a sleeve valve which projects below the bottom of the piston for engagement with the device which operates it. Several alternative forms of this latter device are shown by Urtel. In Fig. 4 he discloses two eccentrics, one with a shaft revolving at the same speed as the crank shaft, the other at half speed, and these two connected by a pivoted double-arm lever, the arms of which are at right angles to each other. The connection with the sleeve valve is made by an eccentric arm from the half-speed eccentric, and a link. The inventor states in his specification

Figs. 3, 4, and 5 show arrangements in which one of the eccentric rods is used as a lever and is set in oscillating movement about its eccentric by the other eccentric. The lever may be a single-arm, a double-arm or a bell-crank in order to keep the exhaust open long enough, etc.

Further references are made in the specification to variations which may be made in this general plan.

The substance of the matter is that appellants here are seeking a patent upon a combination of two elements: namely, a sleeve valve and a drive for the sleeve valve consisting of two eccentrics, one full speed and one half speed, with proper connections, so that the movements of the sleeve valve will be timed in correlation with the strokes of the piston. There is nothing novel in either of these ideas and nothing which was not well known at the time the application was filed. To combine these elements without any showing of a new and useful result is not invention, and, therefore, the rejection of the claims was proper.

Counsel for appellants calls attention to the fact that Knight does not show any piston rings and that this feature is novel. However, we assume that the appellants would not claim their device is patentable if this is the only matter in it not shown by the references. Piston rings have been used for many years and are well known in the art, and could hardly be said to render inventive this disclosure. The decision of the Board of Appeals is affirmed. Affirmed.

[U. S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals]

IN RE WHITING

No. 2,691. Decided April 22, 1931

410 O. G. 1059; 48 F. (2d) 912

1. DESIGNS-PATENTABILITY-COMBINATION OF OLD FEATURES MAY BE PATENT

ABLE. 66 #

*

* the fact that the individual elements of the design are old does not prove want of invention in assembling them into a design. Old and well-known elements may be combined into a design which is patentable. The authorities are wont to state that such a design is patentable if there be invention in it."

2. SAME-SAME-DRESS.

A design for a dress Held unpatentable over the prior art.

APPEAL from the Patent Office. Affirmed.

Mr. Louis E. Giles and Messrs. Fraser, Myers & Manley for Whiting.

Mr. T. A. Hostetler for the Commissioner of Patents.

GRAHAM, P. J.:

This is an appeal from the decision of the Board of Appeals of the United States Patent Office affirming the decision of the Examiner in denying a patent to appellant upon a design for a dress. The particular dress in question is stated by counsel to be the official uniform of the Girl Scouts of America, and the drawings accompanying the application show a one-piece dress with a box pleat in the back and with a detachable belt. Three patch pockets are shown in front, one on the left breast and two below the belt. There is a rolling collar which has upon the lapels on each side the letters G. S. Over each shoulder are inverted tucks. The sleeves are of the ordinary type, stitches hold the upper yoke on the back, and also confine it just above the belt line. A row of extra stitching is around the edge of the collar and two rows of extra stitching are across the top of each pocket. The pockets are closed with buttons, and the belt is fastened in front with two buttons. This belt also has extra stitching and there is an extra row of stitching around a large hem at the bottom of the skirt. The cuffs are fastened with buttons. The Board of Appeals has refused to grant a patent for this design by reference to the following: Reed, 1,008,493, November 14, 1911. Anderson (Des.), 51,831, March 5, 1918. Goldstein, 1,538,632, May 19, 1925. Montgomery Ward & Co., item 36-B-359, page 60, 1925. The reference Reed shows a shirtwaist with a box pleat in the back. Anderson is a design patent for a sweater coat and shows a roll collar, with a belt and cuffs and bands of different colored material surrounding the bottom of the skirt of the coat and edging the two pockets which appear upon the front. Goldstein is a product patent upon a belted garment, and shows the back of a garment with a box pleat, a detachable belt, a yoke and a rolling collar. The reference to the catalogue of Montgomery Ward, items 36-B-359 and 367, shows house dresses-359 being made to button in front, with one patch pocket and a rolling collar; item 367 showing a similar collar, a belt and two patch pockets, this garment evidently being of the slip-on type.

[1] It is quite evident that every individual feature of this garment is old and shown by the references. However, the fact that the individual elements of the design are all old, does not prove want of invention in assembling them into a design. Zidell v. Dexter, 262 Fed. 145. Old and well-known elements may be combined into a design which is patentable. The authorities are wont to state that such a design is patentable if there be invention in it. In this court, we have said that to constitute such invention the designer must have invented a new, original and ornamental design. In re Walter, 17 C. C. P. A. (Patents) 982, 39 F. (2d) 724, 396 O. G. 706. Speaking of design patents, the Supreme Court said in Gorham v. White, 14 Wall. 510, 528:

We hold, therefore, that if, in the eye of an ordinary observer, giving such attention as a purchaser usually gives, two designs are substantially the same, if the resemblance is such as to deceive such an observer, inducing him to purchase one supposing it to be the other, the first one patented is infringed by the other.

Again, it was said in Smith v. Whitman Saddle Co., 148 U. S. 674, 679, 63 O. G. 912:

The exercise of the inventive or originative faculty is required, and a person can not be permitted to select an existing form and simply put it to a new use any more than he can be permitted to take a patent for the mere double use of a machine. If, however, the selection and adaptation of an existing form is more than the exercise of the imitative faculty and the result is in effect a new creation, the design may be patentable.

To the same effect are Zidell v. Dexter, supra; Faris v. Patsy, etc., 273 Fed. 900; Sagendorph v. Hughes, 95 Fed. 478; Boldt v. Turner Bros. Co., 199 Fed. 139.

[2] We are forced, somewhat reluctantly, to the conclusion that the design disclosed here presents nothing inventive in character, and nothing which would lead the ordinary observer to conclude on seeing it that here was something distinctive and different from anything he had seen before. Every bit of ornamentation or work upon it is old in the art of the seamstress and its elements can be seen on any street of any city, in the costumes of the passers-by.

Allusion is made to the letters G. S. upon the collar lapels as being distinctive. These are simply block letters, of no unusual design. The placing of these letters upon the design can not be said to be inventive. If so, any letter, or any combination of letter, would constitute a different, patentable design. The substitution of one letter, or emblem, in such a design, for another, is not inventive in any greater sense than was the fraternal emblem in In re Merritt, 17 C. C. P. A. (Patents) 629, 35 F. (2d) 783, 390 O. G. 3. The decision of the Board of Appeals is affirmed.

Affirmed.

[U. S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals]

IN RE HORNSEY

No. 2,687. Decided April 22, 1931

410 O. G. 1060; 48 F. (2d) 911

PATENTABILITY-REDUCING IRON OXIDE MATERIAL.

Claims for a process of reducing iron oxide material to metallic iron without melting Held unpatentable over the prior art.

APPEAL from the Patent Office. Affirmed.

Mr. Edward W. Shepard and Messrs. Usina & Rauber for Hornsey.

Mr. I. A. Hostetler and Mr. Howard S. Miller for the Commissioner of Patents.

BLAND, J.:

The application in this appeal relates to a process of reducing iron oxide materials to metallic iron and involves the consideration of three claims, 2, 56 and 57, of which claim 2 is illustrative and reads as follows:

2. The process of reducing iron oxide materials to metallic iron without melting, which consists in first heating the ore in a state of division in an internally heated inclined rotating cylinder to approximately the temperature of reaction, in discharging the heated ore into a second, reducing, inclined rotating cylinder, introducing fuel into said second cylinder, and also introducing solid carbonaceous material in a state of division into the second cylinder near the inlet end thereof at a place whereby said material is entrained with the ore and moves therewith and whereby nascent gases are liberated in situ, passing the gases from the second cylinder into the first and burning them to effect the internal heating referred to, and in cooling the product of reduction, at all stages excluding all air save that actually required for the combustion. The rejection of the three claims by the Examiner was affirmed by the Board of Appeals of the United States Patent Office, and from the decision of the latter, appeal was taken to this court.

In the Board's decision the following references were listed: Jones, 981,280, January 10, 1911; Rendall, 1,053,436, February 18, 1913; Alford, 1,097,156, May 19, 1914; Jones, 1,174,729, March 7, 1916; Stansfield, 1,403,576, January 17, 1922. Rendall, Álford and Stansfield were relied upon.

In the method disclosed, the ore is first heated in a state of division in an internally heated, inclined, rotary cylinder to approximately the temperature of reduction. The heated ore is then discharged into a second reducing, inclined, rotating cylinder into which lastnamed cylinder is introduced fuel by a pipe, and also into the lastnamed cylinder is introduced solid carbonaceous material in a state of division, which material is coal or coke finely pulverized. The gases generated in the second cylinder during the reducing process are passed upwardly through a chute into the first cylinder and these gases are then mixed with additional fuel and are burned to effect the internal heating of the first cylinder. The product of the reduction is cooled in a third cylinder. During the process all air is excluded save that which is necessary for combustion.

The claims were rejected on the patent to Rendall for the reason that no patentable invention would be involved in substituting a solid carbonaceous reducing agent for that part of the gaseous reducing agent in Rendall, the solid reducing agent being well known and old in the art as shown by Alford and Stansfield. The claims were also rejected on the ground that there was no invention in substituting the reduction of Stansfield in the process of Rendall.

Appellant admits in his brief that "the separate elements of which this combination is composed may be separately found in diverse patents" and cleverly and earnestly argues that this fact constitutes no true anticipation of the combination itself. He argues at length that the substitution which would have to be made by taking one element from one patent and putting it into another could not be made in a successfully-operating process, since no desirable results would obtain, and discusses, in detail and with obvious familiarity

with the subject, the technical phases of the process under consideration.

The process necessarily involves a consideration of highly technical matters. The Board and the Examiner have given these matters careful consideration, and, notwithstanding appellant's exhaustive treatment of the subject, we are not convinced that the Board's conclusions are wrong. In matters appealed here from the Patent Office, which involves the findings of the experts of the Office on highly technical questions, such findings are given great weight and are only rejected when it is clear that they are erroneous. In re Beswich, 16 App. D. C. 345, 91 O. G. 1436; In re Demarest, 17 C. C. P. A. (Patents) 904, 38 F. (2d) 895, 396 O. G. 4; In re Wietzel et al., 17 C. C. P. A. (Patents) 1079, 39 F. (2d) 669, 400 O. G. 463.

Since it is admitted that all of the elements of the process are old, we are not prepared to say, contrary to the decision of the Board, that invention resulted from the combination of these old elements. The Board sustained the Examiner in holding that "there is no invention in substituting the reduction step of Stansfield in the process of Rendall," and the Board states further that:

We see no reason why the Stansfield patent would not suggest the use of solid carbonaceous material as a substitute for the hydro-carbon reducing gas of Rendall if it were found to be of any advantage.

and also:

* if Stansfield were willing to sacrifice the advantage of effecting partial reduction of his ore in the reducing cylinder as described on page 1, lines 106 to 107, there is no reason why he should not use Rendall's direct preheating system of feeding his carbonaceous material to the reducing cylinder as Rendall does his reducing gas. This mode of feeding is also disclosed in Alford though he uses indirect heating for both cylinders.

With the above-quoted conclusions we are not prepared to disagree. In arguing that, notwithstanding the fact that the separate elements in his process may be separately found in other patents, this is no true anticipation, appellant relies upon Frederick Co. v. Sanford Riley Co., 287 Fed. 495; In re Champeau, 17 C. C. P. A. (Patents) 568, 34 F. (2d) 1012, 388 O. G. 783; and Line Material Co. v. Brady Elec & Mfg. Co., 299 Fed. 824. Without discussing these authorities at length, we call attention to a quotation from In re Champeau, supra:

But, even though there be nothing novel in the elements combined, if applicant here has, by a combination of known elements, accomplished a new and useful result, he is entitled to his patent. [Italics ours.]

In In re Appelburg et al., 17 C. C. P. A. (Patents) 820, 37 F. (2d) 620, 394 O. G. 7, we said the following:

Where a given number of elements, which produce a known result when functioning separately, is assembled and the assembly produces only a combination of the results found in the individual units, no invention is shown.

Many other citations of authorities by this court to the same effect might here be enumerated, but the principle is so well settled that we regard this as unnecessary

Agreeable to the decision of the Board, we conclude that there is nothing inventive in the rejected claims, and its decision is affirmed. Affirmed.

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