with it, and his opinion given in court is therefore not colored by the case, but the lawyer, being by nature an advocate, is under the necessity of varying his opinion. and procedure to fit emergencies. Too often he expects the expert to pursue the same course, and it is this expectation that may make the job of being an expert something that an engineer dreads. Judge Hough, we hope, is teaching his doctrine to his own profession.

WHAT

PRICE

BOOK REVIEW.

PROGRESS? By HUGH FARRELL.

G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

This book of 320 pages written in a popular style endeavors to set out some of the recent advances and some of those about to be made in various fields of industry, such as Heat, Power, Light, Gas, Paint, Rayon, Explosives, Rubber, Sugar, Railroads and Phonographs. The author's thesis is that the manufacturer who by research does not constantly keep ahead of the rest of the industry is doomed and his stock is not a safe investment. Chapters are devoted to the research work of the Eastman Kodak Co., General Electric Co., and American Tel. and Tel. Co., followed by a showing that research pays well and a regret of the decadence or lack of pure scientific research in the United States. The patent departments of these companies are not mentioned. The book is evidently underwritten by the Chemical Foundation which is praised for its administration of patents acquired from the Alien Property Custodian, who had seized them from the German and other alien owners during the war. The only other references to patents is a regret that we have a treaty with Germany with reference to working patents.

"Yesterday belonged to the mechanical engineer, but today and tomorrow belong to the chemical engineer", and so most of the book is devoted to chemical accomp

lishment and hope although the belief is expressed that perpetual motion is to be a reality in the near future. "The investor whose money is really in danger is the investor who has put his savings into industries which are not keeping up with the times in the matter of new processes and methods of manufacture of fundamental resources. "Eternal research is the price of survival in modern industry". "You would not believe that potable alchohol carrying a wallop that would floor a longshoreman could be made from petroleum, but it has been done." "As a man changes from dust to dust, iron changes from rust to rust". The scientist shows the way to a better product for less money without impairment of volume". "The chemists failure to make silk as strong as that made by the silk-worm may be, and probably is, due to the fact that his product is not really synthetic silk-it is just a good imitation of silk." "Although new discoveries may start an industry into an immediate decline they cannot immediately replace the older products-not unless they show us the way to pick tangible things out of the air." "The true scientific mind, of course, never accepts anything as a permanent fact. "Science and research have found the solution of the 'farm problem' for which the politicians have been blindly groping, and it also means the gradual development of a vast new industry based on sugar from corn and Jerusalem artichokes." "Invention is not primarily the inspiration of genius, it is the achievement of the engineer in the application of principles discovered by science." "As a rule, the introduction of a revolutionary principle to any art is merely the starting point of new development. "The most expedient thing that American business could do today is take at least one or two well rounded scientists who might be expected to know what was in a changing world on its corporate boards." "Very little fundamental or pure research is being done in this country. And the importance of that fact, in addition to the necessity of keeping up with competition from other countries, is this: Industry is liable to run out of new principles for further development.'

The author suggests as a remedy the undertaking of research in all fields by the Government. The present movement to collect a large fund for scientific research by the National Academy of Science is a more practical move to meet the same need.

K. F.

W. TEMPLE FRANKS.

(From La Propriete Industrielle, November 1926)

We regret to announce to our readers the sad news of the death of W. Temple Franks, former Controller General of the British Patent Office, who succumbed on the 4th of July 1926, after a long illness.

Mr. W. Temple Franks was 64 years old. Educated at Oxford, where he was a brilliant student, he undertook, in 1890, the profession of barrister. He practiced for 13 years, after which he was named First Assistant Librarian in the House of Commons. From 1905 to 1909 he was secretary of the Railway Company's Association and in 1909 he was made Controller General of the Patent Office, a position which he occupied until last March, when his ill health obliged him to resign.

He represented Great Britain at the Conference in Washington in 1911, at the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919 (Economic Section), and at the Reunion of Experts in Geneva in 1924. He was included among the delegates at the Conference at the Hague in 1925 but the state of his health prevented his taking a part in that Conference.

The Association of the Heads of Patent Offices, established at The Hague, saw fit to honor him by naming him its first president.

He was a distinguished man, of great personal charm. He was very popular in the reunions of our domain. His death is a sad loss, not only to his colleagues in the British Patent Office, but also to a large circle of persons who have met him in the many congresses of the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property.

CURRENT COURT DECISIONS.

DOUGLAS PECTIN CORP. v. ARMOUR & CO., Dist. Ct., W. D., New York, July 20, 1926, 14 Fed. (2nd) 768.

The defendant was sued for alleged infringement of three patents owned by plaintiff, viz: 1,082,682; 1,235,666; and 1,304,166. All relate to processes of jelly and jam making.

The defenses raised were: (a) lack of patentable subject matter; (b) public use by others for more than two years before the alleged invention; (c) anticipation, and (d) failure to make sufficient disclosure as required by statute.

The plaintiffs argued that the patents were in the pioneer class, the patentee being the first to isolate fruit pectin for utilization in making jellies and jams.

The process of the first patent consists in eliminating the natural sugars from the fruit by expression or by diffusion in water, and then digesting the pulp or "pomace", as it is known in the trade, in hot water, to obtain the pectin. The essence of the invention was said to lie in the removal of the sugar, whereby the pectin is obtained as a viscous, non-gelatinous syrup.

The court found the first patent to be sufficiently definite, when read by one skilled in the art, to satisfy R. S. 4888.

The second patent removes turbidity from the product of the first patent by converting the dissolved starches into sugar by means of diastatic enzymes, thus preventing the starch and tannin from combining and precipitating. The court found the patentee's ascertainment of the cause of turbidity and the means he devised for removing it to be new and novel, and not an obvious expedient, in spite of expert testimony to the contrary.

The third patent relates to a process of making jelly with the patented pectin concentrate without the prolonged boiling which had previously been necessary in making such products.

As to this patent, also, the court found the objection of indefiniteness to be unsubstantiated.

Plaintiff showed at the trial great commercial appreciation of the alleged inventions, evidenced by increasing sales and eager seeking of licenses by manufacturers. This evidence was acknowledged to be persuasive of patentability, but only in the absence of prior use or prior art.

Some forty witnesses were sworn to prove that the processes of the first and third patents and pectin concentrates were familiar to those skilled in the art long before the Douglas conception. The court reviewed the testimony of a few of the witnesses and found that plaintiff's process of producing and concentrating pectous solutions to be substantially anticipated by prior public use, saying:

*

*

"The evidence of prior public use is very voluminous It has not been discredited or impeached and fairly comes within the rule of the Barbed Wire Case, 143 U. S., 275. In nearly all instances the prior processes were the result of independent endeavor each accomplishing a removal of the natural sugar from the pomace after extraction of cider, and getting a pectous solution and some a concentrate."

The Douglas processes, except for the second patent, were found to be merely a "carrying forward, or new and extended application, of the original thought, a change only in form, proportions or degree.' Smith v. Nichols, 21 Wall, 112. The modifications of these prior uses were only such as come within the realm of those skilled in the art, and, hence, devoid of invention. The second patent was accordingly held valid and infringed; the other two invalid because of prior uses. F. H. MARKS, Div. 2

JAMES HEDDONS SONS INC. et al. 12 SOUTH BEND BAIT CO. 14 F (2nd) 805. Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh circuit, March 6, 1926.

Appeal from the District Court of the U. S. for the