Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-10-27


! Out of the Patent Office-Remoyel of
the Models Is Perhaps the Beginning
| of the Transfer of the Whole.
The patent Office has been moved
CT at least that fea ture of it which
Is known to the public. says the
/ Washington Star. The office of the
patent commissioner remains in the
Old building on + street, but the col
lection Of models, which was the
'shoW feature of the office. has been
moved to the upper floors of the big
red brick building on G. street. be-
tween Sixth and Seventh streets.
Which was put up by private capital
for the use of the city post office. This
removal will confuse the occasional
visitor to Washington who thinks that
he knows the landmarks. 70 visitors
the big interior department building,
which occupies two full city squares.
has always been ''the patent office. -
And the patent office meant to them
the collection Of models displayed in
glass cases on the upper floor. The
i Waterman at the main entrance to the
interior department building will have
Il hard time for two or three years
:, explaining to the tourist that the
model room is in another building now.
The model room of the patent office
was the first show place in Washing
ton. 1t came here with congress from
Philadelphia when there was no capi-
tol ana no white house, no national
museum, no Washington monument.
no state department library with the
original declaration of independence
on view, and, in fact. no object of par
ucular interest to SightSeerS. Most
OF the department shows are of COM
pafauVely recent date. They were es-
tablished because the opportunities of
tourists for information became a nui-
sance to the workers in the depart
ments. They wanted to know lust
what was going on everywhere, to
peer into al of the rooms where the
clerks were trying to work, and to
ask 1nnumerable questions. Now they
are turned into the state department
library, or directed to the national
museum or the Smithsonian, and they
soon see enough to satisfy their thirst
for knowledge. But the model room
of the patent office they have had
since the foundation of the govern
ment and for fifty-three years it has
been in the same place. 1t has been
desoiated by fire twice, but that did
not prevent the collection becoming so
bulky that the government had to
amend the law requiring that working
models be filed with applications for
patents
The removal of the model room to
new quarters was the suit of the agi-
tation over the safety of government
buildings growing out of the Ford's
theater disaster. The model room of
the patent office was on the top floor
of the interior department. building,
where several thousand clerks are en-
ployed. The clerks needed more room
and safer place to work than under
! the impending weight of the hun
dredS of tons of models. SO the mo-
del room had to go. 1t "an never aavc
quite the same interest for the tour
ISL again unless the ambition of the
patent commissioner is gratified, and
Il building is erected for the EXPRESS
accommodation of the patent office.
There exists i'll the patent Office :,
tradition about patent office fund
which some day is to pay for the new
patent office building. There is really
no such fund. though the emDloyes of
the patent office will assure YOU that
| there is. and though the patent com
missioner has sometimes spoken of it
III his annual report. The fact is that
originally the fees for the issue of
patents were deposited in the treasury
to the credit of the patent office. and
the expenses of the office, including
the salaries Of its officers, were paid
out of this fund. At that time the
fee for obtaining q patent was 81.
Originally the work of issuing patents
was done by the state department
clerks, and the secretary of state, the
secretary of war, and the attorney gen
eral passed on applica TONS 1t was
not until 1SO-forty years after the +.
passage of the first patent law-that !
congress recognized the patent office /;
as separate establishments, and made |
an appropriation for superintendent
VI DuleulS.
By this time the patent office had !
grown to be very important institu- |
ton. It's expenses were much less
than its receipts and the fund to it's |
credit began to grow rapidly. In 1S49 |
the patent office was made 4 part of |
the interior department, but the fund
still accumulated until congress in 1868
passed an act turning the money into
the general treasury, and made special /
appropriations for the expenses Of the
patent office like the appropria tons for
other bureaus Of the government This
abolished the patent office fund alto-I
gether, but the commissioner of patents
still keeps an account of it; it has be-
come 4 tradition of the office, and at
intervals congress is petitioned toI
make appropriations from the vision
airy four millions (for that is the profit
which the patent office has made for
the government in a little more than
a hundred years. for the erection of
patent Office building. 1t is not at
all likely that congress will do any
thing of the kind-at least for many
years.
The patent office can point with
pride to the agricultural department
and to the interior department, of
which it is a part. Not only is it older
than either of them bTt il Is really