River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-02-27
CAVEATS Anc PATENTS.
The Laws Relating to Them Said to BE
HoneIessty Muddfed.


OF course il is not to be expected that
the feeble and uneducated brain of tba
layman shall comprehend the mystery
of the law, especially as it is more than
suspected that the wisest of the legal
fraternity are not very clear upon good
deal of it, but are liable at any moment
TO get woefully tripped up, and as, more
over, the law is one of the most changes
able things in the world, and is seldom
the same thing two days running. To
the layman, for instance, il looks as if
the laws of caveat and Of patents were
as hopelessly mixed and as hopelessly
imperative as any thing could well be;
but perhaps to the legal mind it APP
pears very different, especially in view
of the fact that legislation upon these
two points seems to have been always in
the direction of giving the lawyers all
the work possible.
The law Of caveat, it is understood by
the layman who has to take his knowla
edge of the law somewhat broadly, is
designed to protect an inventor in any
idea he may have started, to the end
that he may have time to develop 1t
properly, and yet be secured in his prop
erty until he has it in working order.
This is genial and beneficent attitude
for the Government to take; but, alas,
in practice the end aimed at is very far
from being reached. The end is that
once having filed caveat an inventor
is at liberty TO go on with his expert
ments without disturbing himself about
the public, or whether what he is driv-
ing at is known or not. The trusting
genius, however, who has regarded this
protection as sufficient, and has allowed
his secret to become known, nav,
the inventor who has been foolish
enough to expose his idea to the
world by laying it before the Patent
Office, has usually found that his idea,
If of any value. has been instantly APP
propriated by INSCRIPTIONS inventors,
and in the end he has been apt to end
worse off than he began. Secresy seems
to be the only caveat which is OF any
value, and secresy is often great dis
advantage in the trying of experiments,
not to mention the difficulty and often
the expense of hiding the experiments
which are needed to bring an invention
to perfection. Perhaps it is asking the
Government more thanit can perform to
ask that it enforce the performance of
it's own guarantees, but since it in a
caveat or patent really pledges itself to
guard the inventor, it is hard to see why
it is not bound to do so or to stop promis-
ing.
AS for patents, the matter is, If any
thing, worse. If there is a patent of
any value in the land which is not
everywhere infringed, and everywhere
beset with lawsuits, it has never come
to our notice. 1t is notorious that if a
patent is really one of pecuniary worth,
it can be broken down, interfered with,
infringed and generally hocuspocused,
and the only redress the owner can get
is to plunge into endless lawsuits, in
which, as the real owner of the patent
with every thing to lose, he is distinct
ly at disadvantage as compared with
the transgressor. who has every thing
TO gain, and under our laws, nothing in
particular which he is likely to lose.
The truth is-speaklng as a layman,
and yet not without some sense of how
difficult the whole matter is-that il
the United States issues a patent it
should be bound TO protect it to the ut
most. The time has passed for tho
promiscuous issuing of patents which
has hitherto done so much to
middle matters in this business. 1t
would by no means be bad plan to
devote portion of the much-talked-o of
surplus, to the proper equipment of
the Patent Office. 1t is neces-
sary that the Government stop
issuing patents to whoever choose
apply, which is pretty nearly
what is done at present, and that it de-
eide before a patent is issued whether
the invention in the first place is worth
its protecting, and in the second place
whether it infringes upon any thing
which has gone before. These matters
settled, let the Government not only
issue its patent, but stick to it after
ward. Patent rights would in that case
mean something and amount to some-
thing, and both justice and industry
would be served, albeit the legal
fraternity would, perhaps, be spared
some trouble, and, happily, some re-
wards "a we'll -Roston Courier.