tais are washed and partially dehydrated, yielding ferrous chloride dihydrate powder, which is briquetted. The briquets are fed into a reduction furnace, where hydrogen at 800° C. is passed through them, reducing them to metallic iron. The hydrogen chloride evolved, along with the mother liquor from the crystallization, is recycled to an acid recovery plant and re-used. The briquets produced are about 99.5% iron and in the Windsor plant will be crushed to produce iron powders. Peace River has been testing the process in a pilot plant at Edmonton and has produced a powder suitable for use by the auto industry. The Windsor plant will use auto scrap as its principal charge. Peace River says its new chemical process is flexible and economical. Company president Gerald Heffernan says the process provides better control of particle size distribution and purity of the powder than do existing mechanical and pyrometallurgical powder-making processes. Mr. Heffernan also says the process will enable Peace River to market high-quality iron powders at a price substantially lower than present North American rates. The powders made at Windsor will be sold to powder metal fabricators to be made into auto parts such as filters, gears, cams, connecting rods, and pump and transmission parts. Automobiles now contain 7 to 15 pounds each of parts made by powder metallurgy. The overall U.S. and Canadian powder metals market is growing by 20% per year and now consumes 120,000 tons of iron powder per year. Despite the rapid growth of powder metallurgy, the real promise of the Peace River process is in direct-reduction steelmaking. The company is studying the application of the process to its Alberta ore, which contains only 33% iron. Such ore usually has to be beneficiated before it can be charged
Peace River's iron powder pilot plant Chemical route
into a blast furnace. However, the new chemical process could allow lowgrade ores to be reduced to iron pure enough to be alloyed directly to steel. Thus, conventional iron- and steelmaking processes, including ore beneficiation (such as pelletizing), blast furnaces, and steelmaking furnaces, could be bypassed. Peace River has already made high-quality steel strip from its own iron powders at its Edmonton pilot plant and plans to install a rolling mill at the Windsor plant to develop this process further.
Justice attacks wording in patent license agreements Restrictive wording in patent license agreements is the bone of contention in two civil antitrust suits filed by the Justice Department against five drug manufacturers. Justice claims that restricting the licensee to the sale of finished dosage forms deprives the consumer of the benefits of free and open competition. But last week several of the drug companies called this interpretation of the law "a novel antitrust theory." The first suit, filed in Washington, D.C., attacks a 1959 license agreement among Syntex, Upjohn, and Searle to make and sell the hormone medroxyprogesterone acetate. Only Upjohn currently markets the drug. It is sold under the tradename "Provest" as an oral contraceptive. U.S. sales in 1966 amounted to $4.4 million, Justice says. The second suit, filed in Newark, N.J., attacks a 1963 license agreement between Sterling Drug and E. R. Squibb on methylglucamine diatrizoate. This drug is used as an opaquing medium in x-ray examinations. According to the suit, Sterling sold $6 million worth of the drug in 1966 under the tradename "Hypaque," while Squibb sold $3 million worth under the tradenames "Cardiografin" and "Duografin." The Justice Department charges that these license agreements violate section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. (This section deals with restraint of trade.) The manufacturers holding patents or rights to the drugs, Justice says, granted licenses on the condition that the licensees would sell the products only in finished form under the licensee's established tradename for use by the ultimate consumer. Licensees were forbidden to sell the drugs in bulk form to third parties, the complaints say. This prevented other drug companies from obtaining bulk supplies and thus restricted competition. The complaints ask that the defendants "be permanently enjoined
from taking part in any agreements which forbid the licensees to sell the drugs to third parties in bulk form." Sterling Drug says that the suit challenging its license to Squibb "asserts a novel antitrust theory." According to Sterling, the practice being questioned is virtually universal in the licensing of patents to companies primarily engaged in the distribution of consumer products. "Despite the relative unimportance of this case," Sterling says, "we are concerned by this development because it represents still another attack by the Government on American businesses* rights and practices under our traditional free enterprise system." Squibb virtually echoes Sterling's statement and points out that the type of license agreement in question is widely used and, up until now, its legality has never been questioned. Searle has nothing to say about the medroxyprogesterone acetate case. Upjohn, however, says, "This is the first time the Government has challenged the right of a patent holder to license others to compete with him in an area determined by the patent holder, who, in fact, could have legally prohibited all competition if he chose." Syntex says it can make no detailed statement until it has seen the text of the Government's "novel complaint." However, Syntex says that the suit "appears to relate to a patent interference settlement entered into in 1959" and does not relate to any product made or sold by them. The firm points out that it has never received royalties nor exercised any rights or restraints under the agreement. In addition, the agreement was approved by counsel for the companies involved and was believed at the time it was signed to comply with the antitrust laws.
ACS patent compromise offers basis for more compromise The American Chemical Society's compromise proposal to break the logjam over the Administration's controversial patent reform legislation may form the basis for a further compromise. This was explained by committee members to ACS President Robert Cairns last week when he outlined the Society's position on the legislation to a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. One of the most controversial Administration proposals would award a patent to the first to file a patent application on an invention. The present system awards the patent to the first inventor, regardless of the date of application. The ACS proposal, MARCH 4, 1968 C&EN 17
