UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

The claim of letters patent No. 149,904, granted April 21, 1874, to Herman Royer, for an "improvement in the modes of preparing rawhide for belting," namely, "the treatment of the prepared rawhide in the manner and for the purposes set forth," is a claim to the entire process described, consisting of eight steps, including the removal of the hair by sweating.

Having put in a claim, in the course of his application, to the mode of preparing rawhides by the fulling operation and the preserving mixture, and that claim having been rejected and then withdrawn, and having also claimed the prepared rawhide as a new article of manufacture, and that claim having been rejected and then struck out by him, his patent cannot be construed as if it still contained such claims.

As the defendants did not use the sweating process, they did not infringe.

The case is stated in the opinion.