plication in Germany was due to the existing and continuous state of war and Held that the grant of the German patent will not, therefore, bar the grant of a patent in this country.

ON PETITION.

CARBURETER FOR EXPLOSION-MOTORS.

Mr. B. Singer for the applicants.

EWING, Commissioner:

This is a petition that applicants be accorded an extension under the provisions of the act of August 17, 1916. This application was filed February 28, 1917. It appears from the oath that the corresponding German application was filed January 27, 1916. This Office has not been advised that the German Government is granting to citizens of this country similar extensions. The German ordinance of May 7, 1915, (215 O. G., 979,) providing for an extension of the periods of priority, states that the provisions of the ordinance shall apply

in favor of subjects of foreign countries when and to the same extent as the priority time limits are prolonged in such countries in favor of German subjects, as shall be certified by proclamation published in the Reichs-Gesetzblatt.

It is assumed that in view of the act of August 17, 1916, extending the time for filing an application where the failure to file it within twelve months was due to the "existing and continuing state of war," a similar extension will be granted by the German Government to citizens of this country.

The showing made is deemed sufficient to establish that the applicants were unable, on account of the "existing and continuing state of war," to file their application within the twelve months. The grant of the German patent will therefore not bar the grant of a patent in this country.

The petition is granted.

EX PARTE ANDERSON.

Decided February 26, 1916.

237 O. G., 309.

PATENTABILITY- -UNPATENTABLE COMBINATION.

Where the art showed, substantially, applicant's mechanism for holding open and effecting the closure of swinging doors and it was also common to have the operation of doors thermally.controlled, Held that claims covering the thermal control of that particular mechanism were unpatentable. [NOTE. This application has eventuated into Patent No. 1,179,384.]

APPEAL from Examiners-in-Chief.

CONTROLLING DEVICE FOR SWINGING DOORS.

Messrs. Gillson & Gillson for the applicant.

NEWTON, First Assistant Commissioner:

This is an appeal from a decision of the Examiners-in-Chief affirming the action of the Primary Examiner as to claims 1, 2, and 8, which are as follows:

1. In a controlling device for swinging doors, in combination, a pair of pivotally connected parts having a spring actuated relative swinging movement for closing the door, a stud mounted on one of said parts, a detent movably mounted on the other of said parts, said detent coöperating with the stud to hold the first mentioned parts against the said spring actuated relative movement when advanced and arranged to be withdrawn by a more forcible initial movement between said parts, a spring acting to advance the detent and a thermally controlled anchor for the spring.

2. In a controlling device for swinging doors, in combination, a pair of pivotally connected parts having a spring actuated relative swinging movement for closing the door, a stud adjustably mounted on one of said parts, a detent movably mounted on the other of said parts, said detent coöperating with the stud to hold the first mentioned parts against the said spring actuated relative movement when advanced and arranged to be withdrawn by a more forcible initial movement between said parts, a spring acting to advance the detent and a thermally controlled anchor for the spring.

8. In a controlling device for swinging doors, in combination, a pair of pivotally connected parts having a spring actuated relative swinging movement for closing the door, a stud mounted on one of said parts, a detent movably mounted on the other of said parts, said detent coöperating with the stud to hold the first mentioned parts against the spring actuated relative movement when advanced and arranged to be withdrawn by a more forcible initial movement between said parts, a spring acting to advance the detent and two anchoring means, one connecting the spring to the part on which the detent is mounted and the other securing the stud to the part on which it is mounted, one of said anchoring means being thermally controlled.

The references are: Moody, No. 777,300, December 13, Voight, No. 1,011,287, December 12, 1911.

1904;

The rejected claims cover a controlling device for holding open swinging doors, but which upon the development of a proper amount of heat, as in case of fire, is released and the door allowed to close. Claim 1, for example, is clearly met by Voight, except that Voight's spring 8, which controls his detent 10, has no "thermally controlled anchor." In order to meet this claim, therefore, it would only be necessary to make the screws that hold the spring 8 of some metal that would melt on the application of heat, so as to release the detent 10. In view of the very common practice of having doors thermally controlled, and controlled, too, by a fastening that can be withdrawn by a forcible initial movement, one of which is shown, for example, in Moody, it is held that applicant's claim 1 is too broad.

16644°-18- -5

The Henry patent, No. 987,722, March 28, 1911, of record in this case, shows every feature, including the " adjustably " mounted stud, (Henry's stud 8, carried by the adjustable collar 7,) except the "thermally controlled anchor." If Henry's screw or serew-head, Figure 4, was of fusible metal, that patent would practically meet claims 2 and 8. These claims seem to be no more allowable than count 2 of interference No. 36,120, and for reasons stated in my decision refusing that count it must be held that present claims 2 and 8 must be refused.

The decision of the Examiners-in-Chief is affirmed.

EX PARTE LUTEN.

Decided January 11, 1916.

237 O. G., 917.

1. PATENTABILITY-BRIDGE-ARCHES.

Claims to an arrangement of arches of different lengths in which the difference in height of the springings of adjacent long and short arches necessarily produces a balance of the differing thrusts on the piers, permitting the use of a slender pier, Held patentable, although the size of the pier is not specified.

2. SAME-MECHANICAL SKILL-REINFORCEMENTS.

Claims relying for patentability chiefly on the location of reinforcing members in the body of the structure Held unpatentable. The location of reinforcing members in the proper places is a matter of design within the skill of the civil engineer.

[NOTE.

This application has resulted in Patent No. 1,186,109.]

APPEAL from Examiners-in-Chief.

BRIDGE.

Messrs. Hood & Schley for the applicant.

EWING, Commissioner:

in

This is an appeal from the decision of the Examiners-in-Chief affirming the action of the Examiner in rejecting claims 3 to 14, clusive, of which the following are illustrative:

3. The combination of a series of arches of span decreasing toward the end. each arch of shorter span having its two virtual springings at different heights and its higher virtual springing toward the adjacent arch of longer span.

4. The combination of a series of arches of span decreasing toward the end, each arch of shorter span having its two virtual springings at different heights and its higher virtual springing toward the adjacent arch of longer span and higher than the adjacent springing of said adjacent arch of longer span.

7. A bridge structure of hardened plastic comprising a pier, two oppositely extending load-sustaining members resting adjacent ends upon said pier, and

reinforcing members embedded near each face of said pier and continuing into the load-sustaining members.

11. A bridge structure comprising two arches of unequal span, a pier support for the adjacent ends of said arches, and reinforcing members embedded in the pier near the springing of the shorter arch and extended along the extrados of the longer arch.

The references cited are: Reinforced Concrete, by Buell and Hill, 1904, page 236; Senate Document No. 96, Fifty-fifth Congress, second session, Plates 6, 7, 14, 26, and 27, (shows more completely the structure disclosed in Buell and Hill;) Engineering News, volume 39, January 27, 1898, page 54; Engineering News, volume 54, October 19, 1905, page 408; Cement Arms, 1904, by Berger and Guillerme, Pl. 19; Zogmann, No. 475,842, May 31, 1892; Luten, No. 1,009,676, November 21, 1911; Luten, No. 1,078,510, November 11, 1913.

Applicant has devised a combination of arches of unequal span in which the shorter arch springs from the common pier at a point higher than the longer arch and also at a point higher than its own opposite end, the result being that the greater thrust of the longer arch is balanced by the smaller thrust of the shorter arch, because the point of application is farther from the base of the pier and at the same time the crowns of the arches are in substantial alinement. This arrangement permits the use of slender piers and conduces to economy and beauty of construction.

Claims 1 and 2, which cover this arrangement, including the slender piers, were allowed by the Examiners-in-Chief. Claims 4, 6, and 13 cover the arrangement of arches above described, without specifying the size of the piers. The arrangement set forth in these claims, however, necessarily produces a balance of parts which permits the use of the slender pier and are believed to cover a patentable invention.

The remaining claims are found to be unpatentable for the reasons stated by the Examiners-in-Chief. They pertain chiefly to the location of reinforcing members in the body of the structure. The location of the reinforcing members in the proper places is a mere matter of design within the skill of the civil engineer.

In this connection it is pertinent to note that since this appeal was taken a number of patents to this applicant, dealing chiefly with the location of reinforcing members in concrete structures, have been held unpatentable by Judge Lewis, of the eighth circuit, in a decision rendered November 13, 1915. (See Engineering News of Dec. 2, 1915, p. 1094.)

The decision of the Examiners-in-Chief is reversed as to claims 4, 6, and 13 and affirmed as to the remaining claims.

EX PARTE KRAMER.

Decided May 2, 1917.

238 O. G., 986.

1. APPLICATIONS SIGNED BY ATTORNEY-PATENT GRANTED ONLY ON APPLICATION SIGNED BY INVENTOR, IF LIVING.

When application as filed was signed by an attorney and accepted under war conditions prior to act of August 17, 1916, under practice outlined in the Commissioner's letter of September 15, 1914, (223 O. G., 1007,). Held that the patent, under section 4888, Revised Statutes, can be granted only on an application executed by the inventor, if living.

The practice instituted to meet the emergency arising out of the European war (Commissioner's letter, supra) was not recommended to the profession and would not have been instituted if the act of August 17, 1916, had been passed at an early date.

ON PETITION.

PUMP.

Mr. Albert G. Davis for the applicant.

EWING, Commissioner:

This application as filed was signed and sworn to by Albert G. Davis as attorney for the applicant, who is a subject of the German Empire, residing at Charlottenburg, Germany. It was accepted pursuant to a practice instituted in September, 1914, and explained in a letter published in the Scientific American of September 26, 1914, (p. 246,) as follows, (copy taken from the Commissioner's Annual Report for the year 1915, 28:)

I am accepting two applications filed by you as attorneys to-day, wherein the inventor's name to the petition and specification is signed by you as attorneys and the oath is made by a member of your firm. The time for filing these applications expires under the convention to-morrow. Therefore, in filing these applications in the form in which you have presented them, you are doing all that you can to save your client's rights, and in permitting them to be filed and giving them a serial number and date of filing of to-day I am doing all I can with the same end in view. If this should not prove to be effective the loss must be attributed to the troubled conditions of Europe and not laid at your door or that of the Office.

It will be necessary before patents are granted that applications be filed executed by the inventor himself, as provided in section 4888. Whether the applications to be filed can be tied to the applications which you are filing to-day under the provisions of sections 4887 is, of course, a matter which only a court of last resort can determine. Ex parte Tropenas (C. D., 1900, 14; 90 O. G., 749) to the contrary notwithstanding, I think it a possible construction of section 4887 that its requirements may be satisfied by the filing of applications executed by an attorney.

I hope, however, in case there are a number of applications executed by attorneys that Congress may be induced to validate patents granted or to be granted upon proceedings indicated above.