Catoctin clarion., 1895-10-03
PRIZES ON PATENTS.
How to Get twenty-five Hun
dred Dollars for Nothing.
The Winner has n Clear Gilt OF u
Small Fortune, and the Losers
Have Patents that NAV
Bring them I'm still
More.

NAOA W
Would you like to make twenty-five nun
dred dollars? Ifyou would, read carefully
what follows and you may see way TO 90 H.
The Press Claims Company devotes much
attention to patents. 1t has handled thoue.
snds of applications for inventions, out II
would like to handle thousands more lhere
ia plenty Of inventive talent in this country,
needing nothing but courag e m en-
to produce practical results. That encour'
apement the Press Claims Company pro-
poses to give.
NOT SO HARD AS 1T SEEMS'.
A patent strikes most people as an appall'
ingly formidable thing. The idea is that an
inventor must be natural genius, IKE Edl-
son or Bell that he must put years to delvlng
in complicated mechanical problems ano
that he must spend fortune on delicate ex-
neriments before he can get new device to
q natentable degree OF perfection. This de-
lus,on the company desires to dlspel. 1t de-
sires to get into the head of the public clear
comnrehepsion of the fact that it is not the
great, complex, and expensive inventions
that bring the best returns to their authors
hut the little, simple, and cheap ones-the
things that seem so absurdly trivial that the
citizen would feel somew hat ashamed OF
bringing them to the attention Of the Patent
Edison says that the profits he has received
from the patents on all his marvellous 1nven-
tions have not been sufficient to pay the cost
of his experiments. But the man who con-
ceiyed the idea of fastening bit of rubber
cord to a child's ball, SO that it would come
back to his hand when thrown made 1or-
time out of his scheme. The modern sew
ing-machine is miracle OF ingcnuuy-the
nroduct of the toll of hundreds OF busy brains
through hundred and fifty years, but the
whole brilliant result rests upon the simple
device of putting the eye Of the needle al the
point instead of the other end
THE LITTLE THINGS THE
MOST VALUABLE.
Comparatively few people regard them
selves as inventors but almost everybody
has been struck, at one time or announcer,
with ideas that seemed calculated 10 reouce
some of the little frictions of life. Usually
such ideas are dismissed without r'rther
thought.
"Why don't the railroad company make
its car windows so that they couio oe slio up
and down without breaking the passengers
backs ." exclaims the traveller. "If l were
running the road would make them IN such
q way"
"What was the man that made this sauce
nan thinking of?' grumbles the cook. "He
never had to work oyer stove, or he would
have known how it ought to have been fixed"
"Hang such collar button y grows the
man who is late for breakfast. "lf were in
the business I'd make buttons that wouldn't
slip out or break of, or gouge out 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 patents, they might find themselves as
independently wealthy as the man who IN
vented 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 in them,
the Press Claims Company has resolved to
offer prize.
TO the person who submits to
1t the simplest and most prone
Using invention, from u CONNER
ciaI point of view, the company
will give $4,000 in cash, In ad-
ditiOn to refunding the fees for
securing the patent.
twill also advertise the in
yentiOn free Ofcharge.
This offer is subject to the following con.
ditiOns:
Every competitor must obtain patent for
his invention through the company. He
must first apply for preliminary search,
the cost of which will be five dollars. Should
this search show his invention to be unpat-
entable, he can withdraw without further ex.
pense. Otherwise he will be expected to
complete his application and take out pat
ent IN the regular way. The total expense,
including Government and Bureau fees, will
be seventy dollars For this, whether he Sc
cures the prize O: not, the inventor will have
a patent that ought to be valuable property
to him. The prize will be awarded by a jury
consisting of three reputable patent attorn-
eys of Washington. Intending competitors
should fill out the following blank, and for
ward it with their application:
-" -, 1893.
II submit the within described invention
In competition for the Twenty-Five Hundred
Dollar Prize offered by the Press Claims
Company
No Blanks in this Competition.
This is competition Of rather an unusual
nature 1t ls common to offer prizes for the
best story, or picture, or architectural plan,
all the competitors risklng the loss of their
labor and the successful one merely selling
his for the amount of the prize. But the
Press Claims Company's offer is something
entirely different Each person is asked
merely to help himself, and the one who
helps himself to the best advantage is to be
rewarded for doing it. The prize is only a
stimulus to do something that would be well
worth doing 1t. The architect whose com.
xetitive nlan for q club house ON q certain