The Opelousas courier., 1893-07-08
PRIZES ON PATENTS.
How to Get Twenty-Five Hun
dred Dollars for Nothing.

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? Ii you would, read carefully what
follows aud you may see a way to do it.
The Press Claims Company >devotes much
| attention to patents. 1t has handled thous-
ands Of applications for Inventions, bnt 1t
would like to handle thousands more. There
is plenty of Inventive talent at large i'll this
country, needing nothing but encouragement
to produce practical results. That encourage
ment the Press Claims Company proposes to
give.
NOT so HARD AS 1T SEEMS.
A patent strikes most peopD as an ap
p%allingly formidable thing. The idea is that
an inventor must be II natural genius, like
Edison or Bell that he must devote years to
delvine in complicated mechanical problems
and that he must spend a fortune on delicate
experiments before he can get q new device
to q patentable degree of perfection. This
delusion the company desires to dispei: 1t
desires to get into the head of the public q
clear comprehension of the fact that 1T 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 absnrdly TRIVIAL that the
average citizen would feel somewhat ashamed
of bringing them to the attention oil Inc
Patent Office. ,
Edison says that the profits he has received
from the patents on all his marvellous inven-
tions have not been sufficient to pay the cost
of his experiments. But the man who con
ceiyed the idea of fastening a bit of rubber
cord to a child's ball, so that it would come
back to the hand when thrown, made "a for
tune out of his scheme. The modern ewing
machine is a miracle of ingennity-the pro
duct 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 at the
point instead of at the other end.
THE LITTLE THINGS THE MOST EALu-
ABLE.
Comparativelv few people regard them
selves as inventors, but almost everybody has
been struck, at one time or another, with
ideas that seemed calculated to reduce some
of the little %frictions of life: Usually such
IDEAS are dismissed without further thought.
"Why don't the railroad company make its
car windows so that they can he slid up and
down without bres Apg the passengers
backs9" exclaims thgWfaveler. eff | were
running the road L would make thc1h III Such
What was the man that made this sauce
nan thinking OFF," grumbles the cook. "He
never had to work over q stove, or he would
have known how it ought to hay been
fixed"
Hang such IA collar button! growls the
man who is late for breakfast. "li | were in
the business I'd make buttons that wouldn't
slim out, or break off, or gouge out the back
of my neck"
Aud then the varions sufferers forget about
their grievances and begin 10 think of some
thing else. If they would sill down at the
next convenient opportunity, put their ideas
about car windows, saucepans, and collar
buttons into practical shape, and then apply
for patents, they might find themselves as
independently wealthy as the man who in
vented th@on umbrella ring. or the one
who patented the fifteen puzzle.
A TEMPTING OFFER.
To induce people to keep track of their
bright ideas and see what there is in them,
the Press Claims Company has resolved to
offer IA prize.
To the person who submits to it he
simplest and most promising inven-
ton, from a cammercial point of view,
the company will give twenty-five
hundred dollars in cash. in addition to
refunding the fees for securing the
patent.
It will also sdvertise the invention
free of charge.
This offer is subject to the following condi
tions:
Every competitor must obtain q patent for
his invention through the company. He must
first apply for preliminary search, the cost of
which will be Eve dollars. Should this search
show his invention to be unpatentable, he can
withdraw without further expense. Other
wise he will be expected to complete his APP
p~lication 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
ought to be O valuable property to him. The
prize will be awarded by a jury consisting of
three reputable attorneys Of Washington.
Intending competitors should fill out the fol-
lowing blank, and forward it with their appli-
cation:
Il submit the within described invention
in competition for the Twenty-Five hundred
Dollar Prize offered by the Press Claims
Company.
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