LIME-BURNING CASE.
THE JUDGE DECIDES AGAINST ELDRED COMPANY.
Important Step Toward Throwing Open to the Kilns the Most Practical and Valuable Process for Burning Lime.
Parkersburg, W. Va., – January 3.– One of the most important suits ever instituted in West Virginia was brought before Judge John Jay Jackson in the United States Circuit Court here yesterday, when arguments were submitted by attorneys for an injunction to restrain the Washington (D.C.) Building Lime Company through its president, Daniel Baker, from further use of what is known as the Eldred process for burning lime, and to cause the lime company to account to the court for the lime burned by this process at the kilns at Bakerton and Ingles, W. Va., on which it was sought to enforce the payment of alleged royalties to the amount of many thousands of dollars.
Judge Jackson decided in favor of the defendants, denying the application for an injunction in an exhaustive decision handed down from the bench last night.
This suit has attracted the attention of the owners of lime kilns in every section of the United States and Canada, by reason of the fact that the validity of the patent covering the Eldred process, which is used by all the big kiln owners in these countries, is at stake. The suit was instituted by the Eldred Process Company, of New York, of which Byron T. Eldred, of Brookline, Mass., is president, and involved in the question of the validity of the patent is probably loss of several millions of dollars in future royalties to the Eldred Company if Judge Jackson’s decision is affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, where the case will be finally determined.
As developed in the arguments, Byron T. Eldred, who claims to have been the discoverer of the process bearing his name, secured a patent in 1902, and sold it to the defendants, who operate the largest kilns in this section of the country, the right to use the process upon the payment of a royalty of one-fourth of a cent per bushel. Several months ago the president of the lime company notified the Eldred people that he would terminate the contract, but continued to use the process for which he had formerly paid many thousands of dollars each year. The plaintiffs alleged that he was infringing upon their patent, and demanded the payment of a sum aggregating three times the amount of that originally agreed upon under the statute covering such cases.
The plea of the defense was that the Washington Building Lime Company is not using a process upon which there is a patent in existence, claiming that the so-called Eldred process is only formerly known at the Dreuker process, patented in 1887, upon which the patent has expired, and which is now public property. It was claimed by the defendants that John and Joseph Dreuker, of Chicago, originated what is now known as the Eldred process, and subsequently disposed of the patent to Byron T. Eldred, who, in the meantime, had hit upon the same method of burning lime, and who, by reason of his superior scientific education and understanding of chemistry, was enabled to overcome some minor difficulties and bring it to a state of perfection. The Dreuker process contemplated the use of coal in burning lime, and diffused the intense local heat equally to all parts of the kiln by means of drawing into the shaft again those gasses which would deaden the local heat. It was claimed by the defendants that the Eldred process is the same in principle, the only difference being that the latter admits into the shaft the proportions of gas and fresh air which makes a more perfect fire.
The decision of Judge Jackson is regarded as a long step toward throwing open to the kilns of the United States and Canada the most practical and valuable process for burning lime now known. It is predicted that the case will finally land in the Supreme Court of the United States, the princely fortune causing the Eldred syndicate to fight to the end. The attorneys for the plaintiffs are Johnson & Dean, of New York, while the defendants are J. M. Woods, of Martinsburg, W. Va.; D. W. Baker and J. N. McGill, of Washington, and D. C. Westenhaver, of Cleveland, Ohio.
