Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/232

 218 FEDBBAL BEFOSTEB. �jacket of the boiler and theshaft is turned. The result of the operation is that the anioial matter is redueed to a fine, dry powder of almost pure animal fiber. The powder is free from odor, and is used as an article of commerce, and, by rea- Bon of the great percentage of nitrogen it contains, and by reason of the absence of oleaginous matter from it, it is fitted for immediate use in the manufacture of fertilizers." �The witness Quimby says, (fol. 1128) : "Exactly what is dons by the defendants is fully and correctly stated in their answer to this suit, which I have read." He further testifies that the defendant's rendering is exclusively by the wet pro- cess, in a number of upright boilers, substantially like the rendering tank desoribed in the patent re-issued to Ebenezer Nilson, May 7, 1850; that when the tallow is ail rendered the scrap is removed from the boilers, and, after the excess of water is pressed out of it, is carried to another part of the premises and deposited in a number of horizontal steam- jacketed stationary cylinders, in which it is dried by the action of revolving arms ; that the rendering and drying are thus two distinct operations, and are not conducted as parts of one process in the same apparatus, but are separately con- ducted in two different kinds of apparatus, respectively situ- ated in two different parts of their premises. It is in carrying on this second stage of the process, to-wit, in drying the scrap after the rendering and pressure, that the complainant con- siders his patent to be infringed. He regards the horizontal steam-jacketed stationary cylinders, containing a horizontal shaft with radial arms, as equivalents for the constituents of the combination described in the first claim of his re-issued patent, �Whether he is correct in this depends upon whether a lib- eral or narrow construction is given to his claim. Any con- struction broad enough to constitute the defendants infrin- gers, it seems to me, would render his patent void, for lack- ing the essential qualities of usefulness and novelty. After a careful consideration of what is fairly embraced in the pat- ents granted respectively to John G. Appenzeller, on the 25th of January, 1859, (defendant's Exhibit Gr ;) and to Matthew ����