CROSS APPEALS from the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The preceding case has treated somewhat of the manufacture of paper; though the case had reference chiefly to a manufacture from rags, and by mechanical means. The present case concerns the manufacture of paper; though this case relates more to manufacture from wood, &c., and by chemical agencies.
As most persons know, the materials out of which paper is made, have to be reduced in the paper-mill, before the paper is formed, into what is known as pulp. This pulp, whether obtained from wood or other vegetable substances, is a fibrous material, consisting of what is called in chemistry 'cellulose.' As such, in its natural state, it is combined with other substances called 'intercellular matter,' which must be removed to render the cellulose fit for being made into paper. It was well known before the year 1853 that the fibres of cotton or of flax were pure cellulose, and that cellulose existed also in straw and wood, but it had not, so far as is known, been extracted from wood by chemical agencies alone, nor brought into a condition to be wrought into paper without mechanical treatment. Even the fibres of cotton and of flax, though pure cellulose, required disintegration in order to reduce them to a pulp suited to felt in paper. This was usually effected by mechanical means-by a rag-beating machine-but when thus effected a product had been obtained adapted to the manufacture of paper, a fibrous pulp, the same in kind and capable of the same use as that obtained from straw or wood.
So a pulp had been produced from straw and some varieties of wood by various processes, many of them cumbrous, and all of them perhaps much inferior to the process of Watt & Burgess; two persons, a patent to whom, and certain reissues of it were under consideration in this case. This is shown by numerous well-known patents, and was admitted in this case.
So before the year 1853 the cellulose produced from straw, wood, and other vegetable substances was not produced in the first instance in a condition of purity, other than one approximate. But it was cellulose abundantly suitable for making paper, and could be purified.
So again, prior to the year mentioned, and the patent of Watt & Burgess, the cellulose produced was not in the first instance of the proper consistency and dimensions, and with fibre of the proper length for immediate felting. However, by chemical and mechanical treatment, subsequently applied, it could be made so, and made so completely.
Finally. In no case and by no process prior to 1853 was pulp produced ready for washing and bleaching by a single operation. Successive operations, largely mechanical, were used; the vegetable substances being however sometimes boiled in alkalies, with or without pressure, and disintegration by mechanical means following.
This having been the previous state of the art, the American Wood-Paper Company being engaged, A.D. 1866, in the manufacture of paper pulp and paper from wood, straw, and other vegetable substances under different patents owned by them, including two reissued patents of Watt & Burgess, all of which different patents they alleged could be used conjointly in their business, filed a bill in the court below to restrain a company called the Fibre Disintegrating Company from what was alleged to be a infringement.
The defendant company made their paper principally from bamboo; though it was alleged, and there was some evidence to show, that they made it also from straw.
The following were the patents owned by the complainants:
I. Two reissued patents, numbered respectively 1448 and 1449, upon a patent originally granted on the 18th day of July, 1854, and antedated the 19th day of August, 1853 (the date of a patent which had been granted by the British government), to Charles Watt and Hugh Burgess, already named, for an improvement in the manufacture of paper from wood, reissued (to Ladd & Keen) in the two reissued patents numbered as avove, on the 7th day of April, 1863; one for an improved manufacture of paper and paper pulp from wood, and the other for the paper and paper pulp, the product of said process of manufacture.
II. A patent granted to Morris L. Keen on the 13th day of September, 1859, for a new and useful improvement in boilers for making paper pulp from wood.
A patent granted on the 16th day of June, 1863, to the said Keen, for an improvement in boilers for making paper pulp.
III. Apatent granted on the 26th day of May, 1857, antedated the 7th day of August, 1854, to Marie Amed ee Charles Mellier (a Frenchman), for an improvement in the manufacture of paper.