Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1888-05-03
WASHINGTON LETTER.
tFrom our regular eorrespondsnt.l
WASHINGTON, April 23rd, 1888

WASHINGTON, April 23rd, 1883.
Complaints against the present meth
DDS of doing business in the United
States Patent Office are becoming loud
and frequent. 1t Is charged that the
examiners in the office are extremely
careless, some say criminal, in their
examination ofapplications for patents;
that they throw out many applications
without properly examining them to
discover whether they are patentable
or not; that other applications are re-
jected which the examiner knows
should be allowed.
These are serious charges against an
important branch Of the Government.
I have thoroughly investigated the
matter In order to discover what, If any
foundation there is for the charges and
who is to blame. ! soon discovered
that the charges were all to true, or
rather that many of them were. 1 also
discovered that the parties who were
responsible for this, 1 might almost say
dlsgraceful, state of affairs, were the
Republican examiners who have been
allowed to continue in office under the
present Administration. And that is
not all. I am firmly convinced that
these hold-over Republican examiners
have conspired together to bring the
office into bad repute, in order to help
the Republican in the Presidential
campaign this year.
In order to get some idea of the politi-
cal effect of such conspiracy among
the Republican examiners, just think
for a moment of the great number of
people who are either directly or in
directly interested in the business of
this office. Suppose you notice for one
day, everything you see, and you will
find how many of them are patented or
are the product ofa patented machine or
process. You will be surprised, for you
will discover that about nine tenths of
all the things either manufactured or
produced in this country are connected
in some way with United States
patent.
After this discovery you will not be
surprised to learn that this Government
issues more patents every year than all
the rest of the world combined. Now
you can more readily understand the
amount of damage that can be done
the Administration by the conspirators.
Every man whose patent is disallowed
without good and sufficient reason
therefor, becomes deadly enemy, not
of the Examiner but of the Democratic
Administration, which he believes has
mistreated him, and his idea of getting
even is, nine times out of ten, to work
like blazes for the Republican party.
This fellow is not alone, there are, so to
speak, thousands of him, and the Re-
publican examiners of the Patent Office
are to blame for all his troubles.
In no branch of the Government is
the head of Department so dependent
on his subordinates as in the p tent
Office. In 1885 President Cleveland APP
pointed Mr.. Montgomery, Michigan
lawyer, Commissioner of Patents. At
the time that was considered an excel
lent appointment. But owing to lack
familiarity on the part of Mr.. Mont
gomery with the extremely complica-
ted practice of the Office, his Republi-
can subordinates virtually ran it for
him. The natural result was neglect
and idleness on the part of the employees
and complaints on the part of the rep
resentatives of the patentees of the
country.
lam informed by gentleman who is
in q position to know whereof he
speaks that there are quite number OF
ex-examiners of the Patent Office now
engaged in business here as patent at
torneys, whose sole capital with which
to begin business were long lists of the
names and addresses of applicants fol
patents whose applications they had
unjustly rejected for the sole purpose ol
afterwards getting fee as an attorney
procuring the patent they had as an ex'
aminer of the United States Patent
Office rejected. These men are Repub.
licans.
In order to break up this practice
bills have been introduced in Congress
several times to make Examiners o.
the, Patent Office Ineligible to act al
patent attorneys for two years from
the date oftheir designations or dismis
sails from office. So far interested par
ties have in some way been able to pre-
vent such bills from becoming laws.
Last year Mr.. Montgomery was sue
ceeded by ex-Representative Hall
of Iowa, as Commissioner of Patents
Mr.. Hall is an able and honest man
but like his predecessor, he too was un.
familiar with the workings of the Office
and the Republican examiners sue
ceeded in getting him to make series
of rulings which have produced much
trouble and litigation. In the mean
time the Republican examiners are en-.
loving the situation and WORKING hard