The sun. (Wilmington, Del.) 1897-19??, 1901-05-30
HALF A MILLION PATENTS.
by the Great Number of Rec
Ords ut Washington.

"1Iow the Government Promotes
Ingenuity is told by Charles F.
Benjamin in the May st. Nicholas.
''The patent Office is faithful
servant to those who seek to benefit
themselves and the rest of mankind
by new and useful inventions. 1t has
put the whole method of proceeding
to obtain patent into set of print
ed rules, instructions and sugges-
tons, and sends a. copy. without
charge or postage, to anybody in the
United States who writes for one. In
this pamphlet is folded full-sized
sheet of specimen pen-drawings of
machine, with a description of them,
and these many youngster with
taste for mechanics or mechanical
drawing would prize. There is
weekly gazette, containing picture
and short account of each patent
granted since the last issue, besides
much other information, and this
gazette the patent office mails at the
rate of five dollars year, or ten
cents single copy. 1t mails for ten
cents fnll-sized printed and en-
graved copy of the drawings and de-
scription of any patent, new or old.
Bound volumes of these copies may
be examined in nearly every public
library in the United. Suppose that
u person is interested in that class
of machine known as a typewriter,
in which there is yet much room for
Improvement. lie may deposit five
dollars at the patent office and re-
ceive by. mail printed and engraved
| copy of every new patent i'll that
class, at the cost of ten cents each,
so long as his deposit lasts or is re-
| newed. This he may do with any OF
| the 4,300 or more subclasses into
which inventions are divided, and n
| list of these subclasSes will be sent
for ten cents. lastly, for two dollars
| the patent office will send him &c
| tickets, each representing ten cents
and on each of these he can at any
the particulars of any patent or is
she of the weekly gazette he de
Sires, and mail it to the office, in
stead of sending full written let
ter with dime inside. Some of tn,
bright and ambitious boys and girl!
of the country have already found
out the ways and uses of the paten
office, and the rest are welcome Their,
as fast as they learn to come.
"Among the nearly half a million
patents granted since 1890, there ar,
all sorts of devices. ranging from tn,
sublime to the ridiculous. If thing
is new, and has to be thought over
granted for it. Should it prove to b
important, the country is the gamer
1T it never comes into use, nobody j
hurt but the inventor, and even Il
him it may be the stepping stone t
something valuable. The first pat
cnt on barbed fencing wire woul
. have been dear bargain for 500, btl
] upon that patent and two others tina
quickly followed it one man mad
profits of not less than $5,000,O00, an
possibly great deal more. Patent
on devices for navigating the al
have long been laughing stock, bu
lately copies of them are more in d,
mand, for great scientists are exper
menting in this field.
! "People laugh at the nearly 2,5C
patents on churns, but intelliger
foreigners tell us that the America
!, appetite for butter is one of the won
ders of the modern world. This loy
a of butter accounts for the attentio
given by inventors to churns. Their
are some $500 patents on devices fC
coupling and uncoupling railwa