BUFFINGTON, Circuit Judge.
This case involves patents for apparatus and process for drying lumber. The artificial drying of lumber, the status of such art, and the improvement thereon are all discussed in the opinion of Judge Bodine, the important parts of which are printed in the margin. His statement is so complete and his reasoning so convincing that this court can rest thereon. Indeed an additional opinion could be little else than an attempt to put into other language what he has so well said. We therefore adopt his opinion as expressive of our own, and limit ourselves to affirming the decree below.
Bodine, District Judge. The patents in suit are the Krick process patent, No. 1,490,569, and the Krick apparatus patent, No. 1,513,727. Both relate to the kiln-drying of lumber. Lumber, in the early days, dried where it fell. Then it was dried in open sheds. These processes were slow, and for many years it has been dried in kilns. The humidity in the kiln was increased by steam. If there is no moisture present, case hardening occurs, and the lumber is useless.
Krick found that by raising and lowering the relative humidity (moisture) the best results were obtained in less time. A kiln operator for Steinway Sons, makers of pianos, testified that by using Krick's process and apparatus he had cut the drying time in half and had obtained better lumber than he had ever had before. The lumber he dried was easier to tool, and was much better suited for fine cabinet work.
In doing so we note that, as the kiln-drying of lumber progressed, the various elements of benefit and injury, of varying elements in different kinds of lumber, woods of varying thickness, and generally of all factors concerned, became so accurately known as to result in tables of "safe" drying figures which were the accepted guides in scientific kiln-drying. These schedules showed what temperatures and relative humidities should be maintained and the maximum temperatures and the minimum humidity which should not be passed. Based on these schedules, the art regarded it as dangerous to raise the temperature higher or to lower the relative humidity below what the schedule made the path of safety. In carrying on this practice the aim was to maintain throughout the drying operation a given humidity and a given temperature. Continuity and relativity of such determined conditions throughout the process was the goal sought.
From this schedule of safety, the Krick patents departed and followed virtually an opposite course, in that it, leaving the maintained scheduled path of safe humidities and temperatures, they went outside and at frequent but restricted intervals lowered the relative humidity. We say at restricted intervals, for, if such lowered condition was maintained, it would injure the lumber, but its intermittence gave an increased drying power which more rapidly drew the interior moisture from the wood. After a determined time the relative humidity was again raised by turning on for a short time a steam spray. The functional difference between the two practices is we think well stated in counsel's words as follows:
"The old practice maintained the safe relative humidity of the schedule at least as high as the schedule called for throughout the entire drying operation; and merely raised it higher by occasional steam sprays, with never any lowerings below the normal safe relative humidity called for by the schedule. It provided no increased drying power whatever.
"The Krick process, on the other hand, intermittently lowers the relative humidity well below the safe schedule, but intersperses those intermittent lowerings with intermittent raisings of the relative humidity which prevent injury to the wood."
The decided advance made thereby in the lumber drying art is already stated in Judge Bodine's opinion.
The other points raised have been duly considered, but, finding no errors in the decree below, it is affirmed.