Marshall County independent. (Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind.) 1894-1895, 1895-04-19
ONE YEARS PATENTS.
OUTPUT OF OUR INVENTIVE
GENIUSES.
American People Have Plenty of De-
vices To Tighten Work, Return Prof
its, and Insure Safety = Lessons
Taught by the Ceascless Activity.
Record of Twelve Months.

1ne annual report Oh tne CHlteu
States Commissioner of Patents for the
year 1893, just issued, is handsome
volume of 1872 pages, ~ inches by ii
in size, and contains the equivalent of
100000 words. 1t is summary of the
contents of the fifty-two numbers of
the official gazette of the patent office,
which contain over 5000 pages Of the
specifications and drawings for the
patents issued During the year 1895
1925 applications for patents were re-
ceived, LOCO for designs, 120 for re-is-
sues, 2,247 for caveats, 500 applica-
tiOns for trade marks, and 401 for Ia
bells. There were 23,61O patents issued
digging the year, against 23.41S for the
preceding year. The number of patents
which expired during the year was H.
IT, Four thousand one hundred and
two patents were forfeited for non
payment of final fees. The patent of
flee at the close of 1893 had to its cred
1t in the Treasury of the United States
81, 2S1, IA. Our patent system has
grown to higher perfection than that of
any other country, and to this date We
have issued about $4,000 patents,
while the total issued by all other cOun-
tries combined is Il little lessthan S4O,-
600.
A Creative People.
With population of 100000 our
country is now doing One-third of the
manufacturing of the world, and moth
inc ..la ri .trny
Gus Industrial activity than the rec
Ords of our patent office. AS an invent
i've and Il creative people we stand at
the head of the nations, and are to-day
the most influential factor in modern
civilization. Mechanical industry char
acteriZes all we do, and is the potent
agency in our successful struggle for
supremacy in the federation OF the
world. To still maintain this suprem-
acy we are continually improving ma
chimes, devices and appliances, which
years ago were supposed TO be practi-
cally perfect. We are nation of ma
chine users, and imprOvers, and as we
glance at the record of our patents for
year we cannot but be profoundly
impressed with the marvels there re-
vealed.
Possible Dangers.
Until recently we had the great adj
vantage of the exclusive use of our az
ricultural machinery, but this is no
longer the case. England, Germany,
Austria. France and Belgium now have
large plants for making all such ma
chinery, close copies and limitations of
ours, and these implements are now
sod in north and south Africa, and
even in Turkestan and Persia. in Rus
STA and Siberia, in Asia Minor, Hun
gary the Danubian provinces, in Eu
ropean and Asiatic Turkey, in India,
Egypt, Australia, and in South Ameri
ca, especially in Argentina and Chill,
and, of course, In England, France,
Germany. Austria and Belgium where
manufactured. Vast wheat areas re-
main to be cultivated, and we cannot
but look with solicitude upon the results
to us of uniting the cheap labor of
fellah, the peOn, the mujik, the ryOt,
and the coOlie with the best agricultu-
raj machinery, machinery which origi-
mated in America, and by means of
which the American farmer has hereto
fore been able to meet all competition.
There is little wonder that we find food
for sober reflection in 5O-cent wheat,
and in viewing new cotton mills in
Japan. which have the best of our mod
ern machinery, which are lighted by
~; 90 cd rio 1nv
the female SpinnerS and wcavers get
ting but 8 cents per day for eleven
hours work. The Spanish peasant
even no longer refuses to buy modern
plow because it has two handles, and it
requires only slight stretch of fancy
to imagine yourself i'm Dakota when
you are visiting wheat farm in Al
geria.
Issuing a Patent.
Few realize the amount of labor and
investigation involved In deciding
whether or not an application for a
patent shall be granted. The first QueS-
ton to be determined is whether the al
legged invention is new; that is, wheth-
er it is to be found in any of the 545,-
600 American patents, or i'm any of the
$4,000 patents of other countries, or
in any book, periodical, pamphlet or
paper, in any language of this or any
other country. This search has to be
made by expert assistants, and they
have n technical library which con-
tains almost everything relating to pat
ents and which now numbers 10000
volumes. The expert may fail to find
all the evidence bearing upon Il case,
but the infrequency OF such failures is
n matter of establishment to one famil-
lar with this sort of work A study of
eighty-One patent cases recently before
the courts, where claims were held to
be invalid, revealed the fact that in
twentysix of them there was no evil
dence that the references before the
courts, in view of which the patents
were adjudged invalid, We're ever cited
by the patent office; in twenty-nine
cases some but not all, the references