ELECTRIC CURD MILLS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 214, 24 August 1927, Page 5

ELECTRIC CURD MILLS

PATENT RIGHTS REFUSED. SAFEGUARD AGAINST MONOPOLY. Wellington, Aug. 24. A case of considerable interest, especially to the dairy industry, was heard by the Registrar of Patents, when J. B. McEwan and Co. opposed the grant of a patent to the Union Foundaries, Stratford, This patent covered the use of electric power for driving curd mills, and the opposition was on the ground that there was no new subject matter for a patent and alleged that the invention was not novel ad also that there had been prior publication. The Registrar refused the patent with costs to the objectors. He held that the applicant's idea of utilising electric power synchronised with the general introduction of such power in 1925. In this case the rights of the public were involved, in that the introduction of the Government’s hydro-electric schemes were intended, amongst other things, to render cheap power available for industrial purposes, and if, as was shown, the applicant’s combination did not go beyond , ordinary workmanship, the practice of dairy factories directly and the public indirectly would be affected by the applicants obtaining monopoly of the combination with the result that prices would not be subject to the reduction due to normal trade competition.