Lorraine Corp. v. Union Tank & Pipe Co.

This suit concerns the alleged infringement of patent rights claimed by the plaintiff as covering forms of a device used to separate gas from oil. Gas traps are in general use in oil-producing fields throughout the country. No description in great detail, either of the general character of gas traps or of the principle upon which they operate, need be given. There are many forms of them, all having, in the main, similar characteristics of shape, construction, and arrangement.

The Department of the Interior of the United States, through its Bureau of Mines, in 1919, issued a comprehensive booklet, setting forth the economical advantages of the use of gas traps at producing oil wells. That booklet was issued prior to the date of either of the patents herein sued on. In it there are illustrated gas traps having float means within the metal container which, through the rise and fall of the fluid brought in from the well, serve to open and close an outlet *848 valve to allow the escape of fluid, aud to act similarly on a gas valve to allow the taking off of the gas. The desirability of maintaining pressure within the container is referred to in the government publication; in fact, all…