Wilson Packing Co. v. Chicago Packing & Provision Co.
| Decision Date | 25 November 1881 |
| Citation | 9 F. 547 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
| Parties | WILSON PACKING CO. and another v. CHICAGO PACKING & PROVISION CO. SAME v. ST. LOUIS BEEF CANNING CO. SAME v. HUNTER and others. |
West & Bond and Munday, Evarts & Adcock, for Wilson Packing Company.
John N Jewett and Offield & Towle, for Libby, McNiell & Libby.
William H. Clifford and B. F. Thurston, for all complainants.
Noble & Orrick, Coburn & Thatcher, E. N. Dickinson, and Eldridge & Tourtelotte, for defendants.
Before DRUMMOND, C. J. and BLODGETT, D. J.
The cases have all been argued together, and involve the same questions of law and fact, and are founded upon the reissued patent of William J. Wilson, No. 6,370, of April 6 1875, for a new and useful improvement in the process of preserving and packing cooked meats for transportation, and in the reissued patent of John A. Wilson, No. 7,923, of October 23, 1877, for a new and useful improvement in metallic cans for containing cooked meat. The reissued patent of William C. Marshall, No. 6,451, of May 25, 1875, for a new and improved process for preserving meats, although set forth in the pleadings, is not relied on in the argument, and need not be further considered as an independent ground of relief. These patents were before us in 1879, in the case of Wilson Packing Co. v. Pratt, 11 Chi.Leg.News, 353.
The most important questions in the case grow out of the patent of William J. Wilson. In his original patent he stated that, in carrying out his invention, the meat was to be first cooked thoroughly, at a temperature of 212 deg. Fahrenheit, so that all the bone and gristle could be removed and the meat yet retain its natural grain and integrity; that a measured quantity of this cooked meat was then, while yet warm with cooking, pressed by any suitable apparatus into a previously prepared box or case, with sufficient force to remove the air and all superfluous moisture, and make the meat form a solid cake, and that then the box or case was closed air-tight upon the meat. It will be observed that he did not distinctly set forth in this original patent in what manner the meat was to be first cooked. There is in the reissue no change in the description of carrying out the invention, except he declares it is a 'preferable' mode of putting the meat cooked into a box or case while yet warm with cooking. The implication, of course, is that it was not an indispensable part of his description of the invention that it should be thus put in warm. There are two claims in the original, as there are in the reissue, and the only difference between them is, that in the original, the first claim states that the cooked meat is to be pressed into an air-tight package 'while heated with cooking,' these last words being omitted in the first claim of the reissue. While these suits have been pending the plaintiffs have filed a disclaimer of the use of the word 'preferably' of the reissue, thus eliminating it from the description therein contained, and leaving the patent in this respect as it was in its original form. They have also disclaimed the use of the following words of the description in the reissued patent: and instead thereof insert the following words, viz.: 'The meat is first cooked thoroughly by boiling it in water so that all the bone and gristle can be removed and the meat yet retain its natural grain and integrity.'
Waiving the objections which have been made to the validity of these disclaimers, we may now state what the invention of the William J. Wilson patent is. The meat is to be first thoroughly cooked by boiling it in water, so that all the bone and gristle can be removed and the meat yet retain its natural grain and integrity. While yet warm with cooking it must, by some suitable apparatus, be pressed into a box or case, previously prepared, with sufficient force to remove the air and all superfluous moisture, and make the meat form a solid cake. The box or case is then to be closed air-tight upon the meat. So that the invention contains these elements:
(1) Thoroughly cooking the meat by boiling it in water, removing the bone and gristle. (2) Placing it, while yet warm with cooking, into a box or case, and pressing it by some suitable apparatus with sufficient force to remove the air and all superfluous moisture, and make the meat form a solid cake. (3) Closing the box or case air-tight upon the meat.
It will thus be observed that the first requisite is that the meat must be thoroughly cooked by boiling it in water, that mode of cooking called 'stewing' not being necessarily excluded, unless the words declaring that 'the meat yet retain its natural grain and integrity' have that effect. The patent limits the cooking to this particular mode; baking, roasting, and steaming being excluded as modes of cooking meat. After the bone and gristle are removed there is no description given of any particular manner in which the meat is to be treated before it is put into the box or case, unless the use of the language that 'it is then wholesome and palatable' has that effect.
And although the evidence shows that all the meat put up by the plaintiffs, and which has entered so extensively into the markets of the country for sale, is corned meat, that is not a part of the patent; and fresh meat, without antiseptics of any kind, if thoroughly cooked by boiling in water, with the bone and gristle removed, and if, while yet warm with cooking, put into a box or case, closed air-tight, would be within the description of the patent. Neither is anything said of the extent of the pressure to which the meat is to be subjected when placed in the box or case, except that it must be with sufficient force to remove the air and all superfluous moisture, so that the meat will form a solid cake; nor is the degree of warmth named which must exist when the meat is put into the box or case; neither is any description given of the manner in which the box or case is to be closed air-tight upon the meat. It is claimed by the plaintiffs that this combination of the manner of cooking and preserving meats for transportation is new, and entitled William J. Wilson to a patent. It should be stated that in the original as well as in the reissued patent of William J. Wilson, it seems to be implied by the second claim, which is made in each, that the box or case must be hermetically sealed. Some criticism has been made upon the use of this word. We do not understand it to mean the same as if it were employed in describing anything as hermetically sealed in a laboratory, but only that the package should be so sealed as to exclude the passage of air into or out of the box or case. The patentee says that this box or case may be made of wood or metal, or both combined, of any suitable form or shape, and of any desired dimensions. It is, perhaps, unnecessary for us to inquire, as all the parties in this case use metal, whether or not the box or case could possibly be made of wood, or whether, in order to accomplish the object which the patentee had in view, it must always be made of metal.
We will, therefore, direct our attention, in the first place, to the question whether or not what William J. Wilson describes in his specifications, as just stated, was the proper subject of a patent.
The cooking of meat thoroughly by boiling it in water, so that the bone and and gristle can be removed, has always been known. If it be admitted that the box or can must be hermetically sealed in order to be air-tight, that was an old device. The Appert process, described in Durand's English patent of 1810, required that the vessel (case or box) in which the food was placed should be air-tight, and that has ever since been regarded as indispensable in any process for preserving such food as is the subject of controversy here. Before the date of the patent to William J. Wilson, meat was placed in a package and subjected to pressure to remove the air, and it is clear any superfluous moisture was thus also removed from the meat. This is shown in the Marshall patent of 1864, because it is manifest his description of the process necessarily implies the removal of the superfluous moisture from the meat, as well as the removal of the air from the meat by pressure, and the hermetical sealing of the box or case in which the meat is placed for preservation transportation, and sale. De Lignac (1855) submitted meat to a high pressure in the tin cans in which it was to be preserved, and which, apparently, were hermetically sealed. Lyman (1869) roasted his meat before putting it into the box or can, and he speaks in his specifications of stewing, boiling, or roasting the meat as being the ordinary mode at that time employed for preserving meat before packing it in cans. It will thus be seen that, prior to the issuing of William J. Wilson's original...
To continue reading
Request your trial