¶1Mr. Arthur W. Dickey, of Detroit, Mich., of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, pro hac vice, by special leave of court, with whom Mr. Stephen W. Blore, of Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellants.
¶2Mr. W. W. Cochran, Solicitor, United States Patent Office, of Washington, D. C., for appellee.
¶3Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and MILLER and EDGERTON, Associate Justices.
¶5The invention claimed in this case is for a process of rust-proofing metallic objects. The three claims selected by appellants as typical are set out in the margin.1 The District Court decided that none of the claims recites anything amounting to invention over the prior art. Appellants challenge other findings of the court which are concerned with the sufficiency of evidence to support particular claims and with particular references upon which the Commissioner relied. But it is not necessary to consider these contentions. It is obvious, we think, that there is nothing in the claims in dispute which approaches the dignity of invention.2 Conceding the utility of appellants’ process, nevertheless, in developing it, they accomplished no more than a skilled mechanic should have been expected reasonably to do, assuming that he was acquainted with the prior art.3*285Whatever may be the characteristics of that flash of genius which is required to justify the granting of a patent, it certainly is not present here.4
¶6Affirmed.