The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1888-03-16

working, and did not know how to
work. 1t had been their custom to
stra gle into the office after nine
o'clock IN the forenoon, and TO spend
great part of the day until four, p. M,
IN gossip, reading newspapers aud
promenading III the corridors. AT half
past three O'Clock they began to make
their toilets for the closing hour of four,
p. III.
Practically there has been no Conn
missioner of patents during the pres /
ent administration. Mr.. Cleveland's /
first apnointee was criminal lawyer,
named Montgomery, who, II he had +
been asked mt the time to define pat
ent, must have had recourse TO the die
tionary. Conscious of his ignorance
he left everything to the employees of
the office.
The employees, clerks, examiners, bu
reau chiefs and copyists, turned their
energies to play, while thirty thou
sand Inventors paying into the Patent
Office over a million dollars per year,
petitioned, prayed, and cursed In vain,
foi action on their eases.
About year ago all Patentdom re-
joiced by the announcement that Mont
gomerv had resigned. The change
came in the shape Of the present com-
missioner, Mr. Hall, an Intelligent, ed
ucated, phlegmatic man, who not only
knew how to define patent, but who
did nothing but define, refine, super
and subteriine them, until his su5ord-
mates and patent lawyers cannot find
his meaning.
Hts definitions in the shape of de-
cisions on cases appealed to him have
been In the teeth of law and establish
ed usage, and have thrown the prae-
tiee into confusion. Meanwhile the
actual work of the Patent Office, that
of examining inventions and issuing
patents, has gone from bad to worse.
Mr.. Hall, absorbed in the mysteries of
abstract Patent law appears To be una
ware that the immense force of princi-
pal and assistant examiners are months
behind with their work and are maxi
ing no effort TO catch up.
This is not an overdawn picture of
the condition in which Mr. Villas found
the Patent Office. To picture the cha
: grin, the despair and the agony of the
thirty thousand or more inventors
whose rights under the Patent law
have been so shamelessly delayed and
NEGLECTED would require the genius Of
Dore.
: Mr.. Villas has Napoleonic habit OF
) poking about the camp incog. and
without Grassland accompaniment.
Last week he took strool through the
Department. He saw things that are
quite familiar TO the habitues OF the
: Patent Office, but which filled him
with righteous wrath. High salaried
men were reading, telling stories, jok.
t ing, loliing with their feet upon theil
, desks, as oblivious to surveillance as il
the distant clamor Of thirty thousand
: swindled applicants for patents.
Then Mr.. Villas inquired concerning
G the condition of case about which
i the inventor had written To him
any but the Secretary of the interior
had appealed to Mr.. Hall he woul,
have got only such plausible explana
I ton as the negligent and culpable eX
e aminer could make up. He probed tn,
/ matter and found that action on tn,
! case had been wantonly neglected
The inventor, who is a very poor man
had lost several hundred dollars. Blu
this is only one of thousands of cases
e The result of Mr.. Villas tour of in
r spection was an order issued prohibit
ing reading, letter writing, gossiping
loafing and visiting among the EN-
!. ployes of the Patent Office. The orde
is excellent. But it's enforcement
!, "There's the rub.n The employees oc
: cupy as many as hundred rooms, an,
II they work or rather avoid work Will
: closed doors. They are skilled in al
y the arts of evading espionage, and
!. school boys contriVe to eat apples an,
read dime novels under the eye of tn
teacher, what cannot these older oi
I tenders do behind closed doors, screen
n and mammoth desks.
: The wretched condition of busines
: and his excentric rulings has suggeste
y remodeling of the T. S. Patent o.
re flee and its laws. Senator Gorma
has introduced bill i'll the Senate {
establish court with three judges
= whose duty among others shall be
ii hear and decide appeals from the ru
n ings of the commissioner of patent.
The new bill has many excellent fes
g. lures of which may write hereafter
7 HELPFUL HrNrs.-Lve is excellel