NEWS
October 25,1940 permanent integral waterproofing that will not interfere with the compressive or tensile strength, nor the time of set. Dry ice is now being used in a very limited way because no means have been found to control it properly. If properly controlled, it would be invaluable for use in railroad cars, trucks, small show cases where refrigeration is impractical, delivery canes, and many other instances where reliable refrigeration is necessary, but where mechanical means of ice become too cumbersome. An economical method for the manufacture of high-carbon ferrochrome. Liquids of varying specific gravities from 1 to 50 for use in place of oil, water, and mercury in flowmeters, level gages, and similar equipment. An organic nickel or cobalt compound soluble in gasoline and stable in the presence of water and aminophenoL A way to make metallic magnesium from the oxide rather than from the initial salt of magnesium chloride. A chemical substitute for saponin would be welcomed by manufacturers of soda fountain sirups and other industries using saponin to obtain a creamy, foamy top. A nontoxic substitute for ethyl alcohol for use inflavoringextracts and food products. An inexpensive abrarive grain which would have a hardness in the range of the diamond. TO BE CONTINUED
New Program of Awards for Industrial Studies THE James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation is sponsoring another program of cash awards for the best papers in the industrial field discussing the application of arc welding to design, manufacture, fabrication, construction, welding service, or maintenance under a dozen award classifications. The papers must report advances and improvements made between January 1, 1940, and June 1, 1942. The total number of awards is 458 and the cash to be distributed is $200,000. Thefirstgrand award is SI3,700. Details may be obtained from the Foundation, P. O. Box 5728, Cleveland, Ohio.
Information Desired IN EACH January issue, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry reviews important events of the preceding year in the chemical process industries. The help of the industry is vital to make the 1940 review complete and accurate. Information is desired on products, processes, equipment, and plants, new in the calendar year 1940. If you have information on such, please send it before November15to D. H. Killeffer, 60 East 42nd St, New York, N. Y.
EDITION
889
New Use for an O l d Substance Thomas F. Healy
On
Munsey Building, Washington, D. C.
SEPTEMBER 11, 1940, the United
States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed down an opinion adverse to the Gilbert Spruance Co., Philadelphia, Penna. The case arose in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania when the Ellis-Foster Co., of New Jersey, assignee of Harry M. Weber, brought suit for infringement against Gilbert Spruance Co. on Claim 11 of Reissue Patent 19,967. Claim 11, which was declared valid and infringed in both courts, reads, "a varnish consisting of a solution of a glycerol ester of a resin and organic carboxylic acid selected from the group consisting of phthalic, maleic, fumaric, malic, and succinic acids, incorporated with nitrocellulose". Weber's claim and specifications describe a varnish of the type known as a nitrocellulose lacquer. Spirit varnishes, solutions of resin in volatile solvents, and oil varnishes, composed of oils and resins in solution, had been used to coat wood in preparing its surface for finishing. Nitrocellulose lacquers, however, consist of resins mixed with nitrocellulose in volatile solvents which evaporate, leaving on the surfaces coated a solid residue of resin and nitrocellulose in some sort of colloidal affinity or suspension. The nitrocellulose imparts a toughness andflexibilityto lacquers—particularly desirable if the lacquer is to be used forfinishingwood where hardness in the surface or film is important. The difficulty in making such lacquers was that no method or formula had been found which made nitrocellulose and the hard resins sufficiently miscible. This is not to say that prior to disclosure of the patent in suit there had been no nitrocellulose lacquers. The art, however, did not seem able to produce lacquers capable of satisfactory commercial performance in finishing woods. It was thought that the harder the resin, the harder would be the lacquer, but this belief did not solve the problem of how to get a lacquer which would serve as a sanding sealer—a lacquer which, when sprayed on a wood surface, could be subjected to hard sandpapering without disintegrating, so that additionalfinishingcoats might be added immediately. The prior art includes U. S. Patent 1,096,776, issued June 2, 1914, to Arsem for a new synthetic resin with the description of the invention directed principally to the mixing of phthalic and succinic acids with glycerol. Arsem states, "Various substances not strictly acids but having acid properties may be employed. For example, 240 parts of the glyceryl phthalate may be acted upon by 279 parts of colophony, an acid anhydride, to form a
hard, reddish-brown resin which is not the equivalent of a simple mixture of phthalic resin and eclophony." If phthalie acid and glycerol react completely, a synthetic resin, well known to the art, Watson Smith resin, really glycerol phthalate, is formed. Arsem points out, seemingly incidental to the main disclosures of his patent, that if glycerol phthalate is mixed with colophony, which is simply natural resin, in proportions he indicates, a new synthetic resin results which is not the equivalent of a simple mixture of phthalic resin and colophony because a kind of colloidal reaction takes place. This synthetic resin is in fact the "rosin phthalic ester of glycerol" or the "rosin phthalic glyceride resin" of Weber's patent, it is the synthetic resin of high commercial value which Weber discloses, it will mix or blend with nitrocellulose to create a lacquer suitable for sanding sealer or other coating for wood surfaces. The Atlas Powder Co., as far back as 1919, had endeavored in extensive experiments to find a nitrocellulose lacquer suitable for this use, but had never produced a commercially satisfactory one. It was contended by the Gilbert Spruance Co. that Weber did not demonstrate inventive genius, that Arsem gave him the resin and all Weber did was to fit it mechanically into a well-established art, that had the Atlas chemists known of Arsem'a resin they could and would have solved the problem of nitrocellulose lacquers by their experiments starting in 1919. The court in answering these contentions assumed that Weber's synthetic resin did come from Arson's patent but that Weber exercised inventive genius by seizing upon a thing which was available to all but had been grasped by none, fitting it into a new place to create an original and useful result. This case presents an example of a new use for an old substance in which utilisation of the old substance solves a problem studied for years without successful solution by skilled persons.
