Home/U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illnois/Pratt v. Thompson & Taylor Spice Co.

Pratt v. Thompson & Taylor Spice Co.

83 F. 516, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2865
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illnois
DecidedNovember 8, 1897
StatusPublished

This text of 83 F. 516 (Pratt v. Thompson & Taylor Spice Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illnois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pratt v. Thompson & Taylor Spice Co., 83 F. 516, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2865 (circtndil 1897).

Opinion

GBOSSCUP, District Judge.

The action is at law, to recover damages for the infringement of letters patent No. 407,684, 23, 1889. The present hearing is upon a demurrer to the declaration. It raises the question whether the patent under consideration discloses on its face a patentable invention. The purpose of the patentee is to disclose such a process of treating nuts as would clean the surface of their shells, and polish and color them to an appearance rendering them more marketable. The mechanism employed is described in the letters patent as follows: *

“A denotes a bousing adapted to be closed on all sides, and wbicb should be provided with door? to permit access, when desired, to its interior, containing the tumbling barrel, B, supported in horizontal position on journals, r, at its opposite ends in the sides of the housing, one journal projecting beyond the housing, and being provided with a belt wheel, q, at which the power is applied to rotate the tumbling barrel. The housing communicates from its upper side with a suitable suction fan, O. The form of the tumbling barrel is preferably octagonal, and it is provided at intervals with inserted longitudinal screens, p, which are left uncovered while the tumbling operation is being performed, to clean the nuts by removing foreign matter (dirt) from their surfaces, but should he closed by sliding bars or boards, o, into grooves along their upper and lower edges while the coloring or coloring and polishing is taking place, as hereinafter described. To prepare the nuts to receive the coloring matter, they should be cleaned; and, to cleanse them, they are introduced through the doors, n, into the tumblin; barrel, when the doors, n, and the housing, A, are closed.1 The tumbling barrel is then rotated, and the fan set in motion, whereby the dirt on the nuts is removed and drawn off by the action of the fan from the interior of the housing, into which it enters through the screens, p. After the cleaning has been thoroughly performed, the barrel is brought to a standstill, and the screens are covered by sliding the bars or boards, o, into place over them. Dry, pulverized coloring matter, such as Italian sienna of desired shade, or a mixture thereof of different shades of color, and, if desired, other suitable earthy coloring material or materials mixed with the sienna, — the mixture and ingredients depending upon the color to he produced, — is introduced in suitable quantity into the tumbling barrel, which’ is then again rotated. Hie result, which is obtained ordinarily in from twenty minutes to half an hour, when the motion of the barrel is stopped, is that the nuts are provided with a dull surface coloring. It is desirable that the nuts should then be polished, which I accomplish by introducing powdered soapstone upon them in the barrel, and again tumbling them therein for about fifteen minutes, when the nuts are removed and packed, and ready for the market. If preferred, the soapstone may he mixed and introduced with the pulverized coloring matter, whereby the coloring and polishing operations are performed simultaneously, and time saved. The color most desirable for pecan nuts ranges from light

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
83 F. 516, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2865, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pratt-v-thompson-taylor-spice-co-circtndil-1897.