Home/D.C. Circuit/Gyro Process Co. v. Coe

Gyro Process Co. v. Coe

107 F.2d 195, 70 App. D.C. 390, 42 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 413, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 2718
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedAugust 7, 1939
DocketNo. 7191
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 107 F.2d 195 (Gyro Process Co. v. Coe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gyro Process Co. v. Coe, 107 F.2d 195, 70 App. D.C. 390, 42 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 413, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 2718 (D.C. Cir. 1939).

Opinion

STEPHENS, Associate Justice.

This is an appeal from a decree of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia dismissing, after a hearing on the merits, a bill in equity seeking under Rev.Stat. § 4915, 35 U.S.C. A. § 63, an order authorizing the appellee Commissioner of Patents, hereinafter referred to as the Commissioner, to issue a patent to the appellant Gyro Process Company, for a process of cracking hydrocarbon oil. The dismissal was based upon lack of patentability over the prior art and upon res adjudicata held to arise from two decisions within the Patent Office. The claims involved in the case are Nos. 31, 32 and 33 of an application filed by Clive M. Alexander April 5, 1924, and assigned by him to the Pure Oil Company and by the latter to the appellant.

The Alexander process may be explained by reference to Illustration 1. Oil such as a heavy hydrocarbon is introduced into coil 46 in a furnace 31 where it is heated to vaporizing temperature. It is then introduced into chamber 40 where the resulting vapors are separated from the unvaporized portion. The latter is then passed into reaction chamber 43. The vapors ascend through vertical pipe 6 into pipes 5 located in another furnace and are there further heated until cracking occurs. The cracked vapors then descend through vertical pipe 7 and are introduced into reaction chamber 43. They are still sufficiently hot, when they thus come into contact with the unvaporized oil introduced as above described into the reaction chamber, to cause cracking to occur in this oil without the application of additional heat. All of the cracked gases, i. e., those produced in the vapor phase cracking as well as those from the liquid-phase cracking, then pass out of the chamber 43, through fractionating column 22, and then through condenser 26.

The facts relating to the rulings upon the ground of res adjudicata are as follows : In ex parte proceedings on Alexander’s application, claims 1-11 were allowed and claims 23-30 rejected. This rejection was affirmed by the Board of Appeals and was not thereafter attacked either by an appeal to the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals or by a bill in equity. Alexander then amended his application to cancel all claims except 1-11 and to add claim 31, and entry of this amendment was allowed. There was at this time pending an interference involving applications of Murphy, Seguy, and Tuttle, the latter being owned by the appellant. Through Tuttle the appellant mov[197]*197ed to bring the Alexander application into interference with the other parties, Murphy and Seguy, and proposed a count to this end. The Examiner of Interferences denied this motion upon the ground that the proposed count was unpatentable over the prior art and ruled, upon his own motion, that claim 31 was unpatentable as substantially the same as the proposed count. Also the Examiner dissolved the interference upon the ground that the count therein was not patentably distinct from the proposed count, and was itself therefore not patentable over the prior art. No appeal was taken from these rulings. Alexander in ex parte proceedings then moved to add claim 32 to his application and asked that a patent be issued on claims 1-11, 31 and 32. The Primary Examiner rejected claims 31 and 32. Alexander then moved to add claim 33 and requested reconsideration of the rejection of claims 31 and 32; but the Primary Examiner rejected claim 33 and denied the request for reconsideration.1 These rulings were affirmed by the Board of Appeals.2 This final ruling rejecting all three of the claims, 31, 32 and 33, is the subject of the present suit.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
107 F.2d 195, 70 App. D.C. 390, 42 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 413, 1939 U.S. App. LEXIS 2718, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gyro-process-co-v-coe-cadc-1939.