Halliburton

The patent in suit, No. 1,930,987, granted to John T. Simmons, is for method and apparatus for testing the productivity of formations encountered in drilling oil wells and other deep wells. The method consists briefly in sealing off the formation or stratum to be tested from the strata above it by means of a packer, thus separating the two zones and relieving this stratum to be tested from the hy-' drostatic pressure of the rotary mud above it, and thus allowing the cognate fluids of the stratum to be tested to flow freely into the bore below point where the sealing off is effected and into the empty pipe carrying the packer which is controlled as to opening and closing by valves operated by movement of the pipe, entrapping the sample thus produced, and removing it from the well unmixed with rotary mud or other contents of the drill hole. The zone to be tested is that exposed in the “rat-hole,” or a bore of reduced diameter which in oil well drilling regularly precedes the making of the full bore of the drill hole obtained when the rat-hole is reamed out.

The apparatus claims describe a packer surrounding the drill pipe, which, when pressed against the walls of the hole…