Rate Case Decided

In a decision which has iust been handed down by the United States Circuit Couri of Appeals for the Ninth District, the largest patent case evei fought on the Pacific Coast has been decided.

After three years of litigation, five of the m-o-st important basic patents held by the Schu'macher Wall Board have been iustained, and i monopoly on these patents has been secured to this company.

An interluctory degree wai handed down by the United States Court her-e aslar back as August 2, 1921, which restrained another manufacturer of wallboard from infringements on two of the five patents involved in this action, two others being also held valid. The plantiffs- appealed from the adversi parts of the lower court's 'decision to the Appellatd Court, and the decision of this court was for the plintiffs, Schumacher Wall Board Company, on all the oatents in suit on which the lower court held otherwise.

^ The litigation in this case has involved a cost rylnlng into hundieds of thousands of dollars, both for fighting and clefending these patents. Depositions were taken thruout the East atrd oner 10,000 miles were traveled by one plantiff and many counsel while the actual hearing in the District Court otcupied ,a period of over a month.

This decision js onebf the largest'docu'ments ever handed down, and covered seventy pages. The Appellate Court went into this case with great thoroness, even to the point of reading in its entirety the v'oluminous record of tfie depositions iaken from Seattle to New York. In handing dbwn this important decision, the Appellate Court stated in part "The voluminous record is taken up largely with the depositions of numerous witnesses who were called by the defendant to testify concerning such alleged prior uses. We have read this testimony carefully . It woul'C extend this opinion to an unreasonable length to review this testimonf in detail. We think it is not- required. It will be sufficient to say, as we have said, with re.spect to the prior patents, thai there are scattered elenients in these various uses which this testimony tends to show was not so much in anticipation, or in any sense a realization of the object sought, as it was the search- for a process that wouid enable the plasterboard manufacturers to achieve the result guccessfully accomplishedl by the plantiffs. Did any one of these processes do anything m-ore than forecast,- in a more or less vague way, the possible and hopecl for result? Was it.not a prophecy, like many other,-written after the event?"

In other words this means that in the search for a process that could enable other plasterboard manufacturers to achieve a result successfully accomplished by the plantifis, these processes did nothing-more than forecast, in a more or leis vague way, a possible and hoped-for result, namely, what thi Schumacher invented and- ac-bomplished.

A further portion of the Appellate Court decision states: "The makin! of plasterboard for inter'ior wall finish or other light blilding purpose is unquestionably an art of great utility, and the irt of combining all the elements en-

(Continued on Page 55)