Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/780

 GOTTFBIED V. CBESCENT BEEWING CO. 765 �outlets for the escape of the products of combustion. A mould in a mould-box is inserted within the inner cylinder, and the drying ap- paratus is placed in position over the cylinders. The blast is then forced from the outside through a pipe into the fire-chamber through or partly through the fire, and the heated blast and gases are thence driven down through and around the mould, which is quickly dried. The hot blast or products of combustion which are here uaed to dis- perse moisture and dry moulds, is utilized by the plaintiEF in heating the interior surface of beer casks. The subsequent application of pitch or other resinons substances is no part of the plaintiff 's in- vention. �It is not claimed that Holbeck & Gottfried were the first to pre- pare the interior of barrels and casks for pitching by the application of beat, but it is insisted that their invention was novel in the char- acter of their hot blast, it being deprived of oxygen, the use to which it was applied, and the manner in which the application was made. The first claim reads : , �"The application of heated air under blast to the interior of casks by means substantially as described, and for the purposes set forth." �If the patentees deemed it important to use a hot blast from which the oxygen had been consumed, and it was their intention to cover sueh a blast, that intention was not elearly expressed in drafting the specifications and olaims. If they deemed a non-combustible hot blast a part of their invention, why did they not cover it in plain terms in their patent? But construing their patent as providing for such a blast, the evidence shows that its properties had been long known, and that such a blast had been actually used in, heating beer casks preparatory to pitching them. The plaintiff's arrange- ment of a rotary fan, an ash-pit, fire-grates, fire-chamber, and Con- necting and discharge pipes for forcing air from the outside into act- ual contact with the fire, and then driving the hot, decomposed blast into casks, was not novel. The German publication described a mechanism substantially like the plaintiff's in construction, mode of operation, and effect. There was no invention in the manner in which the patentees applied the decomposed blast to the interior sur- face of casks, nor am I able to see that they were entitled to a patent for the use which they made of the hot blast. The patentees took old and well-known mechanical contrivances for accomplishing useful results, and applied them to a new purpose. In this there was nothing to support a claim for a patentable invention or process. The varions ��� �