Gasair Corp. v. Ransome Co.

The plaintiff, Gasair Corporation, brought this action charging defendant, Ransome Company, with infringement of its Heller Patent No. 2,023,809 and now appeals from a judgment of the district court holding the patent invalid on grounds of anticipation and lack of invention and dismissing the complaint.

Plaintiff’s patent, issued in 1935, covers an automatic distributing system for butane gas. The device of the patent is admittedly a combination of elements, all of them old in the art, but allegedly so combined as to perform a new and useful function.

The invention claimed is a gas mixing apparatus in which raw butane is automatically released to local mains as demanded by the consumer and when so released is mixed with air in proper proportions. This operation is accomplished by bringing the butane under pressure to a valve chamber or housing which has several outlets or ports controlled by a slide valve. This slide valve opens or shuts successively one or more of the several outlets in the housing, being controlled by a diaphragm which is responsive to the pressure of mixed gas in the mains.

In operation, if the pressure of the main drops, the slide valve is moved by the…