257 
THE PATENT ON THE HYDROCYANIC ACID GAS PROCESS DECLARED 
INVALID. 
By D. W. Coquillett. 
On the 9th of April of the present year Judge E. M. Ross, of the 
Federal court for southern California, rendered a decision of consider- 
able importance to the horticulturists of that State. Readers of lNSE< IT 
Life have in a previous issue been made aware of the fact that a few 
years ago three enterprising fruit-growers of southern California applied, 
for and actually succeeded in obtaining a patent on the process of 
treating trees with hydrocyanic acid gas for the destruction of certain 
kinds of injurious insects — a process originating with and worked out 
by the writer. Shortly after obtaining their patent agents were sent 
out to different fruit-growers, offering them the right to use this process 
by paying the patentees a certain sum for each acre of trees upon which 
the process was to be used. However, with three or four exceptions, 
the growers refused to purchase the patent right, although the majority 
of them continued to use the process as in the past. After a number 
of them had thus been appealed to, they decided to form an organiza- 
tion for the express purpose of resisting the claims of the patentees. 
Accordingly, a large organization was soon effected, and the patentees 
found themselves confronted by a majority of the fruit-growers of 
southern California. 
Finding their efforts in this direction futile, the patentees next sought 
to persuade the boards of supervisors of the different counties to pur- 
chase the patent right for their respective counties, but here again 
their attempts proved unsuccessful: in every case the matter was 
referred to the district attorney, and the latter decided either that the 
patentees had no moral nor legal right to the patent, or else that the 
supervisors were not authorized to expend any money for the purpose 
of purchasing a patent right. 
Finally, the patentees decided to test the validity of their patent in 
the courts, and in che autumn of 1893 caused the arrest of one of the 
fruit-growers, charging him with the unlawful use of their patent, and 
seeking to obtain from him not only the first cost of the patent right 
but also the value of the profits that had accrued to him as a result of 
his having used the process covered by their patent. The organization 
of fruit-growers alluded to above then employed the proper counsel to 
represent them before the court, and in due time the trial took place, 
resulting in the rendering of the decision referred to in the opening para- 
graph of this article, to the effect that the patent is not a valid one. 
In their specifications for this patent the applicants acknowledge that 
they were not the first to use this process, but based their claim upon 
the use of it "in the absence, substantially, of the actinic rays of light." 1 
In rendering his decision Judge Ross concludes as follows: 
