The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-03-22
TO Be Put Out Of Business.
BY MARSHALL LORD
Copyright, 1903, by Marshall Lord.

The British Patent Office, that branch
of His Majestys government which
Dickens named 1.-The Circumlocution
Office" and at which he poked all man.
ner of fun, is to be made more like
an up-to-date business institution and
less like a place guaranteed to drive
to drink any one who tries to get any
thing done through it, by being remod-
eled on the lines of the Patent Office
in Washington.
The leaders of Parliament are push
ing through a bill which will bring
about this result. This bill is the out
come of the deliberations of a COM
mittee which was appointed by the
government nearly two years ago to
decide what the faults in the present
patent system were, and to make
recommendations" And their chief
recommendation was
Make this Office like the Washington
bureau. Amend the present law so
that inventors will be able to do bust
ness with the British Patent Office and
get almost as satisfactory results as
they do now when dealing with their
own Office in Washington.
Once the reform is begun an end
will be put to a system that is relic
of the Offices antediluvian days, and
that has. aroused more complaint
among American inventors, to say
nothing of English ones, than any
other. That is the system of taking
an inventors money and giving him
in exchange patent that doesn't
guarantee anything.
Patents Issued on Patents.
At present the British Patent Office
will issue a patent to any one who
will pay the fees and furnish a de-
scription of the objects he wants to
protect. 1t will issue ten patents, if
they are applied for, on exactly the
same thing, leaving the unfortunate
patentees to decide in the courts
which one has the real claim to the
invention.
OF course, no inventor, American or
otherwise, would pay money to the
British Patent Office for a patent on
anything, if he knew that the office
had already given several other pco-
pie patents on the same invention.
That, however, is exactly what the
British Patent Office doesn't let him
know. Unlike it's American counter
part, the English office now doesn't
give itself the trouble of looking over
its record and telling an applicant fer
a patent whether any one is before
hand with him or not. Instead, for
all these years it has gone laundering
along, giving out patents to all who
apply, but declining, as its officials
put 1t. ito guarantee the novelty OF
any invention" Consequently, the
American inventor has not known
1T H.
England was going to protect him
there, or whether it wasn't.
Cost Much Greater Than in Amer
The present patent laws amendment
bill. however, isn't going to do any
thing toward lowering the cost of get
ting an English patent, which another
OF the American inventors causes OF
complaint.
At present, to take out a patent In
England costs a lot more than it does
in the United States. The preliminary
cost. 1t is true, is less for an English
patent, the registration and subse-
Quent grant amounting to only $40. as
compared with $35 in the United
States. When this amount is paid In
America. there is no more to be spent
upon the patent until the end of the
I The English patent, however, runs
only fourteen years, and after the first
| four years have passed a sliding scale
! of further fees. at the rate IS for each
year. begins-that is to say, $25 pay
able at the beginning of the fifth years
$50 at the beginning of the sixth, etc.
so that by the end of the fourteenth
year tie holders patent has cost him
! just s495, as compared with the Amer.
/ 20
The Patent shark"
Another thorn in the path of the
American inventor in England is the
British patent shark" Hundreds OF
| Americans are buncoed by him every
year.
The game upon which this slippery
individual depends for his bread and
butter consists in making Americans
believe that they can obtain an Eng
| fish patent on their inventions after
the time when 1t is possible to do Sc
has actually gone by. Aided by the
| official list, which the American
patent Office issues every month
these English sharpers mail TO each
inventor 10 whom a patent has been
awarded "A piquant and inviting little
circular. stating that they stand ready
upon receipt OF the necessary fees, IA
attend TO his English patent business
| for him.
Occasionally this merry little plan
| fails completely the intended victims
! American acuteness causing him 10
send his dra wings and cash 10 the
agent IN care Of the United states
consul or Ambassador. with dlrec-
tons ~ turn them over 10 the par.
ties. should they be found response.
bic. Then the sharpsrs are hOisted With
their own petard. Unfortunately, Il