Activated Sludge, Inc.

To their sewers few city dwellers give a second thought, so basic and taken-for-granted is sewage disposal in urban life. New York City's sewers spout 1,107,000,000 gallons every 24 hours. Chicago's daily 800,000,000 gallons would make a 100-acre lake 40 ft. deep. There is a mile of sewers for every 1,000 persons in the U. S. Even a half-hour suspension of sewage disposal might cripple city existence, but who cares?

Last week in Milwaukee a Federal District Court judge signed his name to an opinion in accounting proceedings in some patent infringement suits which brought sewage disposal smack into the dinner-table conversation of every taxpayer in the city. To Activated Sludge, Inc., which had sued the City of Milwaukee, its Sewerage Commission and several contractors for using its patented method of treating sewage and certain patented apparatus used for this purpose without license, Judge Ferdinand A. Geiger awarded profits and damages of $4,977,000, the equivalent of a $6 tax increase for each $1,000 of real and personal property value on' Milwaukee's assessment rolls. What made the award of national interest was that fortnight ago a favorable decision in a similar patent infringement suit against Chicago's Sanitary.District was upheld in the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Activated Sludge's compensation in that case may make Milwaukee's payment look like small change. All patents which Activated Sludge controlled in the U. S. have now run out their 17 years, but the company still has suits pending against New York City, Fort Worth. Tex. and nearly 100 other cities. Back royalties and settlements secured since 1934 include: Cleveland $85,000, Houston $75,000, Indianapolis $73,000. San Antonio $58,000, Columbus $40,000, Peoria $23,000, Cuba, Mo. $80.

Poignantly for Milwaukee's taxpayers, Milwaukee might once have purchased rights to the Activated Sludge patents for $25,000 but preferred to gamble on their validity. The process was originally suggested at the Lawrence Experimental Station in Massachusetts in 1890. Further experiments were carried on in Manchester, England. About 1914 patents on the process were taken out in England and elsewhere by a British foundryman named Walter Jones. He formed Activated Sludge, Ltd., died in 1922. An American named Edgar C. Guthard, the U. S. licensee, and Activated Sludge, Ltd. sued Chicago's Sanitary District in 1924 for patent infringements. In 1927 Guthard formed Activated Sludge, Inc. and it joined in the U. S. lawsuits. Milwaukee was sued in 1928 and Activated Sludge won its first decision in 1933 against that city when its patents were held valid. President of Activated Sludge, Inc., is one Carl W. Johnson. Large in the sludge pie is the finger of wealthy Chicago Patent Lawyer Lynn A. Williams who was recently the successful defendant of a damage suit brought by a beach-loving fellow lawyer (TIME. June 21). Besides being a Sludge stockholder. Attorney Williams' firm of Williams, Bradbury, McCaleb & Hinkle is handling the sludge lawsuits, was estimated prior to last week's award to have secured for Activated Sludge some $630,000.

In Activated Sludge plants, the raw sewage is inoculated with virile sludge (e. g., sludge impregnated with growths of oxidizing bacteria) from a previous cycle and air is pumped through the liquids for six hours. The liquids, rendered harmless, are then allowed to flow out slowly. The sludge, highly odoriferous, must be disposed of by burning, burying or stabilizing.

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