Halliburton

This is an appeal from a final decrep of the District Court holding patent No. I, 930,987 “and particularly claims 8, 9, 10, II, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 invalid for want of invention”, and not infringed by appellees.

The patent in suit was issued to John T. Simmons on October 17, 1933 on an application filed February 10, 1926 and is for a method and apparatus for testing the productivity of formations encountered in drilling an oil well. Claims 8 and 18 are method claims and claims 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,16, 17, and 19 are apparatus claims. The apparatus includes a pipe or casing, the end of which is perforated, which is lowered into an uncased extension of the well bore of reduced diameter (called a “rat hole”) for testing the formation for gas or liquid. Near the lower end of the pipe, but above a packer, a valve is provided which can be manipulated from the surface of the well to either close or open the interior of the pipe to the fluids of the formation which enter through the strainer from the “rat hole”. When the perforated end of the pipe, or “strainer”, is placed in the rat hole the valve in the pipe is opened to the atmospheric pressure while the pressure…