The Responsibility of the Author
41 iiitere-ting
priiit i- t h e rebponsihility of the author. and he (aannot delegate this responsibility to others.
study n-odd be t o determine the numher of new authors each year whose names appear on the coiltents pages of -IMERICLY CHEVICLL r r R - \ m - v ~ R K Sconstitute valuable property and. as SOCIETY j ournalh such, should be respected by authors when references JVe ha\-e neT-er made such a study, but w e suspect are made to them in scientific and technical articles. the figures nould be very high. The size of the and in n e m items. profession has grou-n tremendously in the past decIf a trade-mark passes into the language as a generic. ade or two and it is self-evident that the aniotult term through the failure of the owner t o protect it. it of rebearch conducted continues to grov by leaps and no longer is a valid trade-mark. This has happened b omid s not infrequently in the past. and it is understandable The growth, of (‘ourhe,means that in any given year IThy on-ners of trade-marks seek the cooperation of ]!-e ale dealing nith a crop of neiv authors who may not editors in their efforts to prevent such losses. be familiar n-ith the manuscript revielying system used The trademark l a m prohibit the use of similar by -1CS editors. -1very comprehensive discussion of the system was marks as trade-marks-that is, as a mark affixed by a person to his goods in order to identify and distinguish puhlished as an editorial in the May 1946 issue of the As LLTTICAL EDITIOS of ISDUSTRIAL ASD ESGIXEERISG them from the goods of others. There is, however, no proT-ision of law which prohibits the public from using CHEMISTRY. Space limitations prevent us from retrade-marks in a generic sense. The owner of a tradeprinting these comments in full, but one in particular mark must rely upon his advertising and u p x i the coneeds t o be repeated at frequent intervals. operation of publishers and editors, in order to avoid S o attempt is ever made to coerce any author into the loss of his trade-mark in this manner. altering his maim ipt against his Ti-ishes. . h y comThe editors of AMERIC.AS CHEMICAL SOCIETY publicapromise he makes as a result of revien-er suggestions is his own acknowledgment of sound criticism. d n y tioiis \\-ish to cooperate and hare done so down through the years by capitalizing the first letter of a trade-mark. revised draft he submits is assumed to be one that he, himself, approveb, not one he has prepared to please the Just recently an informal poll of editors attending a meeting of the Society of Business Magazine Editors critics. If an author disagrees with reviewer criticisms, showed that the overwhelming majority of editors in he is expected to inform the editors the reason or reasons for such disagreement, but he is under no obligation to that national organization followed this method of make changes suggested by reviewers. identifying trade-marks. With the comments of both author and reviewers I t is almost unnecessary for the editors of .ICs publications to point out that Society journals contain a before him, it then becomes the duty of the editor and large proportion of papers reporting original research his associates to decide m-hether to accept or reject a manuscript-a responsibility not taken lightly. Howand, therefore, are referred to more frequently than ever, it is important for each author not to overlook the other magazines serving the chemical field. Failure t o identify a trade-mark in an hCS journal may combrief statement on the contents page of every ACS journal. which reads : “The AMERICANCHEMICAL pound this failure many times over. SOCIETY assumes no responsibility for the statements -ICs editors are conscientious in their efforts to and opinions advanced by contributors to its publicaidentify trade-marks properly. Even so they need the help of authors and ask that authors make a serious tions. ” Obviously, the primary purpose of t h e revienying effort to identify trade-marks in manuscripts submitted for publication. The editors also ask careful cooperasystem is maintenance of high standards for SALYTICAL CHEMISTRY. I n most instances published tion in the preparation of abstracts of papers for inclusion in the “Abstracts of Papers,” issued by the manuscripts are improved a s a result of t h e comACS Keivs Service prior to each national meeting, ments of reviewers. However, what appears in -
Trade-Mark Identification
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