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dominated by and can only be used in connection with some patented machine or device. And so, likewise, I do not believe the question of whether a dominating basic patent is alive or dead will have any effect in either promoting or retarding applications for improvements to be used in connection therewith. If the improvements are meritorious they will be used whether there are dominating patents in existence or not, and patents for them will be applied for, without regard to whether such basic patents are alive or dead. Would the added cost of patent maintenance through such a system be sufficiently great to deter corporations, large or small, from disclosing their inventions through patents? Probably not, as the question of expense is one of the last matters considered by such corporations and the expense to them is always a small matter. As they all maintain a patent department in charge of a skilled patent attorney, the government fees and a small compensation to the inventive employee are the chief items of expense. On the whole, then, I emphatically do not favor renewal fees, but if we are to have them then there should certainly be a reasonable time given to the inventor before the first fee is payable, to enable him to dispose of his invention or determine its utility. Seven years is none too long; a longer term would be better. As to the size of the fee, it should probably be nominal; five dollars a year would be sufficient, the idea being merely to require the owner, by the payment of the fee, to definitely put himself on record as not yet being willing to dedicate his invention to the public. Any considerable increase in the size of the fee would be merely playing into the hands of the great corporations who would wait to freeze out the small inventor and force him to dedicate his invention to the public, so that they could then use it free, whereas if they had to wait out the 1 7 years for his rights to expire, if a corporation really needed the use of the invention they would be ready a t once to agree to pay the inventor a reasonable compensation for the use of his invention. I n conclusion I desire to call the attention of this Division of SOCIETY to three bills now pending the AMERICAN CHEMICAL before Congress relating to the Patent Office and which are receiving the active support of and have been already approved by the Research Council, the various Patent Bar Associations and Chambers of Commerce of the United States, and of scientific and technical societies and organizations in general, and to earnestly request this Division to endorse these bills by some such resolution as that with which I will close this article. These bills have in view the following objects: First-An increase of salaries to a point commensyrate with the high cost of living which apparently is as high if not higher in the city of Washington than elsewhere. Second-The organization of a Court of Patent Appeals in order to relieve the various Circuit Courts of Appeal from the consideration of cases requiring special training in patent law and applied science and so doing away with the conflict of decisions in the various independent circuits, there now being no last court of resort to which appeal therefrom can be taken to settle the law. Third-The separation of the Patent Office from the Department of the Interior and its organization as an independent department responsible to the President direct. Salaries in the Patent Office particularly in the case of the corps of examiners are notoriously inadequate to attract and retain in office a force having the necessary legal and technical training, For many months the lower grade of assistant examiner has been to some little extent filled by temporary appointees who have not passed the Civil Service Examination required by law, the Civil Service Commission having been wholly unable to fill the existing vacancies in the corps of examiners from those passing the necessary examinations. Even before the declaration of war with Germany the Patent Office had become a mere training school for young men who after a
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few years’ service would resign to accept better positions with patent attorneys and manufacturing corporations; and with the greatly increased cost of living, matters have reached the point where unless relief is given the condition of affairs will go rapidly from bad to worse. The fact that the office revenues are ample should also be considered. The Patent Office, however, has never been allowed to expend its own revenues; all fees are covered into the Treasury of the United States and the office can expend only such moneys as Congress cares to appropriate for that purpose. Up to the present time the Patent Office has turned into the Treasury of the United States about eight millions of dollars over and above all moneys which it has expended. As to the desirability of the establishment of a Court of Patent Appeals to take final jurisdiction of all patent cases i t is wholly unnecessary to advance any arguments; the desirability of such a court is so manifest as to be self-evident. As to the separation of the Patent Office from the Department of the Interior, the matter is simply the question of cutting a little government red tape. At the present time practically all appointments in the office are made under Civil Service rules, but solely on the nomination of the Commissioner of Patents approved by the Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary cannot himself appoint. The proposed change should simply leave all matters where they belong-in the hands of the Commissioner, the legal head of the department. Will some one of the members present kindly offer a resolution in some such form as the following: Resolved, By the Division of Industrial Chemists and Chemical Engineers, the Pharmaceutical Division, and the Dye Section of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY now in session at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that we heartily endorse the three bills now pending before Congress looking to First-An advance in the compensations of Patent Office Employees covered by the bill H. R. No. 7 0 1 0 . Second-The establishment of a Court of Patent Appeals, covered by the bill H. R. 5013. Third-The separation of the Patent Office from the Department of the Interior and its organization as an independent department, covered by the bill H. R. 501I. And we earnestly urge upon the Congress of the United States that the same be passed a t the present session. Resolved, That a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the Clerks of the House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate a t Washington, D. C. ~
PATENT RENEWAL FEES B y W. R. WHITNEY, General Electric Co.,Schenectady, N. Y.
The object of this paper is to express opinions on the principle of patent renewal fees, not because I know all the facts necessary for executive action, but because I want to contribute in order to learn more of them. My first thought on reading Dr. Hesse’s letter of June 4 was that he had made a good case for renewal fees. As his facts receded from the foreground of my memory, I saw as the most appealing point of argument, the fact that the “dead German patent, therefore, still lives and rules in the United States,” but on looking a t it from different angles, I am not sure that even this is an evil to counterweigh added burdens to American inventors. There might be simpler ways to kill a living dead German patent, if that were desirable, than strangling American inventors. Judging, superficially I admit, from the enormous activity of American inventors, which has become a national characteristic, I am led to ask “Why change?” I do not know that added fees would have serious effect, but as Dr. Hesse points out, we ought to inform ourselves by contributing discussions. I do not think added fees would greatly stifle or restrict inventive activity, because most inventors are persistent fellows, delayed, but not stifled, by such matters. I think that those who are not well backed financially would be handicapped,
‘OCt., 1919
T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
however. They would not so generally get their financial reward as a t present. It may now come to them long after they have ceased to hope. To-day a man who is willing to consistently back himself, as an inventor, may prepare a wonderful future. This vision greatly stimulates experimental work. The way up hill is steep, and few are successful, but the thing is logical. He may make an invention, which, a t the time, promises absolutely n o commercial value, but which, owing to his foresight, will produce great returns. Finally he, or someone else, sufficiently develops the field which he foresaw and to which he contributed. I would not increase charges to him, nor reduce his chance of finally having his reward, where his foresight, as to public wants, has been so exceptional. It may seem strange, but I do not know anything about “wealthy corporations maintaining blocking patents,” and so the effect of added fees thereto seems uncertain. I believe that any additional fee would fail to deter them, if this fee were one which the average - inventor could Dav. - - There mav be a blocking system in action where a manufacturer operates only one of his several patents on different products for the same service, or different processes for the same product. A would-be competitor i s kept from using either, but the public has no interest in having second-rate things made, nor second-rate processes used, because finally it has to pay for them. My impression is that the more complex the law and the more costly or complicated the patent processes, the greater will be the relative load on the individual inventor. Large companies employ experts whose business i t is to be proficient in the law and efficient in its application. The individual inventor, on the other hand, is almost universally negligent in these matters, because he is properly -and necessarily preoccupied by his inventive work. For that reason we ought to consider first the interests of the “authors and inventors” whom it is the object of our American patent law to encourage. Let us make their way smooth and their encouragement great, rather than sell them at, perhaps, almost prohibitive prices, and well above cost, something which even to themselves has only one chance in a hundred to win. It might be argued that the public need fees in order to pay for the clerical work connected with supplying a patent or renewing it from year to year, but no one has made this claim. I think it will be found that our Patent Office still malres a profit for the public out of the present method of encouraging inventions, and that there is nothing philanthropic in it. Is it not true, that even with what we think is liberality, the public, in order to encourage invention, practically sells the inventor a t a first profit to itself, a piece of paper, a license to legal battle, which on the average is not worth its cost to the purchaser? Whenever it is valuable, we, the same public, take a second very much greater profit for all time in return for a small percentage allowed the inventor for a limited period. Might we not go farther in encouraging invention so that a man might even educate himself for it, instead of discouraging it to any increased extent, as proposed? Any patented idea is more apt to be developed and made useful than the same idea without patent. The manufacturer only takes it up for the profit he expects to make. Frequently he must run a great risk in extensive development, and it is still to public interest that he do so. Therefore, there would be fewer inventions actually developed if the patents lapsed from failure t o pay annual fees. An undeveloped invention, which all people are equally free to sell, if it requires expensive development, will find few who are willing to take the risk of development. A definite period of assured monopoly is often as necessary for the manufacturer as for the inventor. This necessary period may in cases be short and frequently constitutes, in practice, only the last few years of a patent’s existence. Even the chance that the patent may prove to be valuable shortly before it expires, is a boon to the inventor which we might well
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leave to him. I think the kind of information we need before we form a fixed conclusion on this point, is, to what extent lack of a fee system in America has benefited or encouraged American inventors, and to what extent the foreign fee system has stimulated or advanced the arts and industries of those countries. I do not know that I should object to encouraging the inventor type of young man even more, if possible, so that he would deliberately study science and engineering with the object of becoming a better inventor. Few aim to do this to-day, though men study to prepare themselves to be chemists, lawyers, poets, etc. This would seem to indicate that the present encouragement for inventors is insufficient and that most of them just happen, in spite of everything.
AN ARGUMENT
A”UAL
PATENT RENEWAL
FEES IN THE U. S. By A. D. LITTLE,Arthur D. Little, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.
Prior to the request that I express my opinion on it, I had given no thought to the subject of annual patent renewal fees in the United States, but in my past experience with foreign patents, I have always regarded such fees as an unmitigated nuisance, and I should expect them to prove equally burdensome here. This is not because the payments themselves are especially burdensome, but because of the necessity of keeping track of them from year to year and paying them in season. If the purpose of such fees is to throw open to the public, through lapses, patents which have been granted to an inventor who has fulfilled his part of the contract by making public disclosure of his invention, annual fees will undoubtedly tend to accomplish their object and they should obviously be made as large and as troublesome as possible. They would undoubtedly be some handicap to the poor inventor and might be expected to have a moderate inhibitive influence on inventive activity. I do not think they would tend a t all to weaken the wealthy corporation, by whom the money value of fees would not be felt, and who could have the payments attended to by their legal departments. There is something to be said in favor of the fees as regards their tending to open up for development ‘fields which have in reality been abandoned by patentees. They would tend to clear away dead wood. Upon the whole, however, I am opposed to annual fees and the fundamental basis of my objection is this-the inventor is under no obligation to disclose his invention to the public. It is, however, to thq advantage of the public that such disclosure be made. A patent is a contract between the Government and the inventor, by which the Government in order to induce the inventor to make the desired disclosure, and in consideration thereof, grants him a monopoly for seventeen years. Obviously, the inventor delivers the goods when he makes the disclosure, and in the nature of things, he cannot recall them. The Government, having induced him to make the disclosure, should not, in fairness, cut short his monopoly or make it contingent upon a succession of burdensome fees and regulations.
PATENTS AND ANNUAL RENEWAL FEES FRANCIS, Parke, Davis & Company, Detroit, Michigan It happens that the writer has, for the past year or two, served as chairman of a special committee of the American Drug Manufacturers’ Association on Patents and Copyrights. I have given a great deal of study to the various published articles upon this subject and have corresponded with officers of similar organizations who have the same interest in view. At &st glance, one is inclined to indulge in rather precipitate conclusions and hence freely tozpoint out the shortcomings of By J. M.
