EMERSON AWARDED DECISION IN TRIAL OF DRINKER SUIT

Terminating a three-year fight over patent rights to the Drinker Respirator, the Federal District Court of Boston yesterday handed down its decision in favor of John H. Emerson, invalidating all three of the Drinker patents.

The trial, begun last November and repeatedly postponed, was the culmination of a battle between Phillip Drinker, assistant professor of Industrial Hygiene at the School of Public Health, and Emerson, a Cambridge inventor, over the rights to the respirator.

Suit for Infringement

Several years ago Drinker developed a respirator in the University laboratories at the request of the New York Consolidated Gas Company and sold the patent rights to the Warren E. Collins Company, which in return paid Drinker a royalty of between $200 and $300 for each machine. Emerson found it possible to build machines using some-what the same principle and allegedly more efficient at a price of several hundred dollars less than the Collins Com- pany. Suit was brought against Emerson for infringement.

The University recognized that the public was not benefitting from the Drinker machine to as great an extent as desired because the price was prohibitive, and to prevent similar situations from arising passed rules forbidding the patenting of any invention that may affect the health of individuals or the public unless the patent be taken out in the name of the University. It was on these ethical grounds and also on the existence of similar machines since 1876 that Emerson based his defense.

Emerson has manufactured much of the University scientific apparatus, especially that used in the Department of Physiology, and perfected the cheaper respirator during the paralysis epidemic of 1931