New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-08-22

chat is to be traced to the education which
has been going on for several years past
among the masses Of the people on this
subject.
Mr.. Hall md ! the Bell Telephone Monopoly.
In making up the record of the Demo
cratic party, that of its representatives
from this state will be found locally most
interesting. There is something which
Mr.. Hall. Of Minnesota, may find it desir-
able to explain to his constituents when
he comes back to his district There have
been introduced in the house Of representa-
tives since last December five bills con-
tanning a provision intended to maintain
and perpetuate the hateful monopoly of
the Bell Telephone company; and Of these
five, three were offered by Mr.. Hall.
The Hon. Charles H. Aldrich, of Chi
cago, who was solicitor general during
Mr.. Harrison's administration, has adj
dressed a memorial to congress on this
subject, from which the interesting facts
that follow have been taken The princi-
pal patents on which the Bell Telephone
Company's monopoly is founded being
about to expire, and this great invention
promising to become the common property
of the people, the great monopoly whose
twenty millions of dollars, cast about for
way OF keeping the public under its
thumb. The result is seen in the issuance
during 1898 of four new patents for. which
applications were filed in 1877, or sixteen
years before. It may be remembered that
the Berliner patent, issued to the Bell
company, was detained in the patent Of
fee in similar fashion until it could be
most useful to the Bell company.
The Monopoly May Be Continued.
If these patents are to hold good, the
monopoly from which we were about to
escape will be prolonged for sixteen years
more. There is one obstacle in the way of
the success of this scheme Section 1887
OF the revised statutes of the United States
reads as follows: p,
mo person shall be debarred from re-
ceiving q patent for his invention or dis
covery, nor shall any patent be declared
invalid by reason of its having been first
patented or caused to be patented in for
e1gn country, unless the same has been in
troduced in public use in the United
States for more than two years prior to the
applications; but every patent granted for
an invention which has been previously
patented in foreign country shall be so
limited as TO expire at the same time with
the foreign patent; or, if there be more
than one, at the same time with the one
having the shortest term, and in no case
shall it be in force more than seventeen
years." E.-
The purpose of this is to place our own
people on as favorable grounds with ref
erence to important inventions as those of
other countries; so that if an inventor has
patented his invention abroad, he cannot
exclude the people of the United States
from free use of it beyond the time when
his foreign patent expires. Now these in
ventions owned by the Bell Telephone
Company, to which reference has been
made, and for which patents were obtained
in the United States only last year,
(whether by fault of the patent Office or
by collision between it and the Bell Com
pany no one need care to say were patent
ed in England, France and Canada in 1877,
in Belgium. Austria, Italy, Germany and
Spain in 1878, and in Prussia in 1882. The
expiry of these patents abroad would,
under the section quoted above, cause the
expiry of any patent procured in the
United States, however long it night
otherwise have to run.