516 
Product  Patents. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  19 18. 
A  portion  of  the  fresh  vegetables  was  dried  at  a  low  tempera- 
ture and  very  finely  ground,  and  100  Gm.  of  the  ground  foodstuff 
were  exhaustively  extracted  with  methyl  alcohol.  The  alcohol  was 
evaporated  at  low  temperature,  and  the  residue  was  taken  up  in 
water  and  filtered.  The  filtrate  was  acidified  with  sufficient  sul- 
phuric acid  to  make  a  concentration  of  5  per  cent.  Phosphotungstic 
acid  was  added  to  this  solution  to  precipitate  the  antineuritic  sub- 
stance. After  standing  for  from  four  to  eight  hours  the  precipitate 
was  filtered  off,  washed  with  5  per  cent,  sulphuric  acid  and  finally 
with  alcohol,  and  dried  in  a  desiccator  over  sulphuric  acid.  The 
nitrogen  was  estimated  in  this  residue  by  both  the  Kjeldahl  and 
Dumas  methods. 
The  values  thus  found  for  the  vitamine  content  of  Philippine 
vegetables  by  this  method  are  usually  higher  than  the  results  found 
by  Funk  for  milk  (0.001  to  0.003  Per  cent.),  and  in  the  tables  given 
results  are  recorded  for  both  Kjeldahl  and  Dumas  nitrogen  values. 
The  agreement  between  the  two  is  fairly  close  when  the  necessary 
correction  is  applied  to  the  Kjeldahl  method,  allowing  for  the  fact 
that  it  is  approximately  25  per  cent,  lower  than  the  Dumas  method ; 
the  vitamine  calculated  on  some  twenty  different  vegetables  from 
approximately  0.002  to  0.04  per  cent. 
PRODUCT  PATENTS.1 
By  K.  P.  McElroy. 
Once  in  every  so  often  somebody  of  a  guileless  turn  of  mind 
asks  me  what  a  "  product  patent "  is  and  it  rather  peeves  me,  for 
one  can't  define  the  non-existent.  There  is  not,  never  was,  and 
likely  never  will  be  a  "  product  patent,"  a  patent  on  a  product  as  a 
product.  The  law  does  not  authorize  any  such  patent.  We  who 
concern  ourselves  with  patents,  like  other  specialists,  have  an  argot 
of  our  own,  and  our  words  and  phrases  are  not  always  what  they 
seem.  We  are  much  interested  in  certain  legal  relationships  be- 
tween a  process  and  its  product;  and  we  chatter  considerably  of 
product  claims,  and  even  of  product  patents,  when  we  are  really 
talking  about  claims  for  a  composition  or  for  an  article.  And  the 
innocent  bystander,  taking  our  vocabulary  for  his  own,  goes  away 
1  The  Journal  of  Industrial  and  Engineering  Chemistry,  April,  1918. 
