The Opelousas courier., 1893-08-19
PRIZES ON PATENTS.
How TO Get Twenty-Five Hun
dred Dollars for Nothing,
The Winner has a Clear Gift of a
Small Fortune, and the Losers
Have Patents that may.
Bring them in Still
More.

Would you like to make twenty five hun
dollars? If you would, read carefully what
follows and you may see il way to do it.
The Press Claims Company devOtes mucl
attention to patents. 1t has handled tIIous,
ands of applications for inventions, bnt il
would like to handle thousands more. There
is plenty of Inventive talent at large in this
country, needing nothing but encouragement
TO produce practical results. That encourage,
ment the Press Claims Company proposes to
give. q
A patent strikes most people as an ip.
palliugly formidable thing. The idea is that
an inventor must be IL natural genius, like
Edison or Bell that he must devote years to
delving i'll complicated mechanical problems
and that he must spend Il fortune on delicate
experiments before he can get n new device
to a patentable degree of perfection. This
delusiOn the company desires to diSpel. 1t
desires to get into the head of the public a
clear comprehension of the fact that it is not
the great, complex, and expensive inventions
that bring the best returns to their authors,
but the little, simple and cheap Ones-the
things that seem so absurdly trivial that the
average citizen would feel somewhat ashamed
of bringing them to the attention of the
Patent Office.
Edison says that the profits he has received
from the patents on all his marvellous imven-
tiOns have not been sufficient to pay the cost
of his experiments. But the man who con-
ceived the idea of fastening Il bit of rubber
cord to a child's ball, so that it would come
back to the hand when thrown, made IL for
tune out of his scheme. The modern sewing
machine is a miracle of ingenuity-the pro
duet of the toll of hundreds of busy brains
through a hundred and fifty years, but the
whole brilliant result rest upon the simple
device of putting the eye Of the needle nt tn"
point instead of at the other end.
THE LITTLE THINGS THE MOST vALU-
ABLE.
Comparatively few people regard them
selves as inventors, but almost everybody has
been struck, at one time or another, with
ideas that seemed calculated 10 reduce some
of the little %frictions of life. Usually such
ideas are dismissed without further thought.
why don't t 1railroad company make its
car windows sr-Ilat they can be slid up and
withotE breaking the passengers
backs ?" exclaims the traveller. IF | were
running the road | would make them in such
a way"
What was the man that made this sauce,
pan thinking otf' %grumbles tho cook. He
never had to work over a stove, or he would
have known how it Ought to have been
fixed"
Hang such Il collar button!' growls the
man who is late for breakfast. al I were i'll
the business I'd make buttons that wouldn't
slip out, or break of. or gonge ont the back
of my neck"
And then the various sufferers forget about
their grievances and begin to think of some
thing else. If they would sit down at the
next convenient opportunity, put their ideas
about car windows, saucepans, and collar
buttons into practical shape, and then apply
for % snts, they might find themselves as
independently wealthy as the man who in
the iron umbrella ring, or the one
who patented the fifteen puzzle.
TEMPTING OFFER.
To, induce people to keep track OF their
bright ideas and see what there is i'll them,
the Press Claims Company has resolved to
offer a prize.
To the person who submits to it the
simplest and most promising inven-
ton, from a commercial point of view,
the company will give twenty-five
hundred dollars in cash, in addition TO
refunding the fees for securing the
patent.
1t will also sdvertise the invention
free of charge.
Every competitor must obtain a patent for
his invention through the company. He must
first apply for preliminary search. the cost of
will be five dollars. Should this search
show his invention to be unpatentable, he can
withdraw without further expense. Other
he will be expected to complete his APP
and take out a patent in the regular
way. The total expense, including Govern
ment and Bureau fees, will be seventy dol
lars. For this, whether he secures the prize
Or not, the inventor will have a patent that
to be a valuable property to him.. The
prize will be awarded by Il jury consisting of
three FPnufHblh ATTORNEYS OF WHShInptDD, |
Intending competitors should ill out the fol
blank, and onward it with their appIi.