administer too, and not only those matters relating to the new Institute, but
also the ‘left overs’ from Karlsruhe—especially the various BASF patent
applications. Lincoln’s perceptive observation may have had its provenance in
politics but it had equal legitimacy in patent law and through 1911–12 the
Haber-Le Rossignol applications, as ‘assignors’ to the BASF, had begun to
generate significant challenges from ‘some of the people’ regarding their
originality and novelty. These of course were the patent lawyers of competitor
companies and they were not easily fooled. Haber’s talk at the Scientific
Union in 1910 had generated immense interest in the ammonia synthesis but
even so, the BASF had been remarkably successful in keeping the extent of
their subsequent progress hidden. However, the challenges were now ‘raining
in’ and the BASF faced a dilemma viz, how to establish their claims without
having to reveal the progress they had made.
In order that a patent be granted to protect the exploitation of some
invention it was (and still is) necessary to show that the claim defining the
invention must be new, not obvious, useful, and/or industrially applicable.
Under such circumstances exclusive rights are granted by a national government to an inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for the public
disclosure of the invention. Certainly, the companies raising the objections
were no fools. Kunheim, Griesheim-Elektron, Hoechst all contested the
Haber-Le Rossignol early patent applications, their claims being based largely
on Nernst’s 1907 paper (Chap. 5) with Fritz Jost which was quite rightly the
first to examine the ammonia equilibrium under pressure. Indeed, even Jost
raised an objection but he soon withdrew. Haber therefore had to expend
much time and effort in addressing their concerns as his correspondence with
the BASF and the German Patent Office shows. The Hoechst Dyeworks
company led the charge, eventually submitting a nullity suit—a formal claim
of invalidity—to the Patent Office on the grounds that the catalytic synthesis
of ammonia under pressure had already been discovered. This objection
primarily concerned the third key patent, no. 238450 (the ‘high-pressure
patent’) but supplementary patents were also contested on the basis of the
presumed ‘invalidity’ of 238450.
Haber received the Hoechst nullity claim on 09 September 1911 and he
immediately contacted the BASF. They suggested a transfer of the patent
business to themselves, to which Haber had little choice but to agree. In the
meantime, the companies began to organise themselves for the coming court
cases and expert witnesses were engaged; Ostwald for Hoechst and his former
pupil, Walther Nernst, for Griesheim. Ostwald’s opinion was that the process
described in the patent was simply an extrapolation from low pressures to
higher ones and that its result could be entirely expected. It was therefore not
224
D. Sheppard
also the ‘left overs’ from Karlsruhe—especially the various BASF patent
applications. Lincoln’s perceptive observation may have had its provenance in
politics but it had equal legitimacy in patent law and through 1911–12 the
Haber-Le Rossignol applications, as ‘assignors’ to the BASF, had begun to
generate significant challenges from ‘some of the people’ regarding their
originality and novelty. These of course were the patent lawyers of competitor
companies and they were not easily fooled. Haber’s talk at the Scientific
Union in 1910 had generated immense interest in the ammonia synthesis but
even so, the BASF had been remarkably successful in keeping the extent of
their subsequent progress hidden. However, the challenges were now ‘raining
in’ and the BASF faced a dilemma viz, how to establish their claims without
having to reveal the progress they had made.
In order that a patent be granted to protect the exploitation of some
invention it was (and still is) necessary to show that the claim defining the
invention must be new, not obvious, useful, and/or industrially applicable.
Under such circumstances exclusive rights are granted by a national government to an inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for the public
disclosure of the invention. Certainly, the companies raising the objections
were no fools. Kunheim, Griesheim-Elektron, Hoechst all contested the
Haber-Le Rossignol early patent applications, their claims being based largely
on Nernst’s 1907 paper (Chap. 5) with Fritz Jost which was quite rightly the
first to examine the ammonia equilibrium under pressure. Indeed, even Jost
raised an objection but he soon withdrew. Haber therefore had to expend
much time and effort in addressing their concerns as his correspondence with
the BASF and the German Patent Office shows. The Hoechst Dyeworks
company led the charge, eventually submitting a nullity suit—a formal claim
of invalidity—to the Patent Office on the grounds that the catalytic synthesis
of ammonia under pressure had already been discovered. This objection
primarily concerned the third key patent, no. 238450 (the ‘high-pressure
patent’) but supplementary patents were also contested on the basis of the
presumed ‘invalidity’ of 238450.
Haber received the Hoechst nullity claim on 09 September 1911 and he
immediately contacted the BASF. They suggested a transfer of the patent
business to themselves, to which Haber had little choice but to agree. In the
meantime, the companies began to organise themselves for the coming court
cases and expert witnesses were engaged; Ostwald for Hoechst and his former
pupil, Walther Nernst, for Griesheim. Ostwald’s opinion was that the process
described in the patent was simply an extrapolation from low pressures to
higher ones and that its result could be entirely expected. It was therefore not
224
D. Sheppard