Solvay Process Co. v. Michigan Alkali Co.
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Appeal from the Circuit Court of tlie United States for the Eastern District of Michigan. This was a hill in equity to restrain the infringement of a patent. Plaintiff, the Solvay Process Company, is the owner, hy assignment, of a patent issued to William B. Cogswell, May 17, 1887 (No. 362,938), for the purpose of cooling saline solutions. The defendants attack the validity of the patent.
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Appeal from the Circuit Court of tlie United States for the Eastern District of Michigan. This was a hill in equity to restrain the infringement of a patent. Plaintiff, the Solvay Process Company, is the owner, hy assignment, of a patent issued to William B. Cogswell, May 17, 1887 (No. 362,938), for the purpose of cooling saline solutions. The defendants attack the validity of the patent. The purpose described In the specifications of the patent is applicable to the absorber or bicarbonate column used by Ernest Solvay, and described in the specifications for a patent issued to him March 4,…
1Opinion of the CourtTaft, Circuit Judge
(after stating the facts as above). We concur with ibe court below in the view that there is no patentable novelty in the device under consideration. The problem which Cogswell had to solve was how to prevent a column of liquid in which chemical reactions were producing heat from becoming so hot as to interfere with the reactions. In Gerstenhofer’s patented apparatus for the manufacture of sodium carbonate was a tank in which the same chemical *822reaction between carbonic acid and ammoniated brine, as in tbe Solvay process, was intended to take place. For tbe purpose of avoiding too great beat…
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