Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1906-04-20
AMERICAN INVENTIONS.
ProEress Of the Country In the An-
dustrfaI Field.

Progress of the Country In the Ah-
dustrfaI Field.
During the fiscal year ending June
80, 1905, 52,323 applications for me-
chanical patents We're filed in the II
ted States patent Office Ii 3O,2oo pat
ents were granted. The business or
the office was the largest it has ever
done in a single year, and the Onlteo
States easily maintains its ran al
the most inventive country in the
world. To December 81, 1903, a total
of 75S,523 patents had been issued by
the United States, nearly half as many!
as had been issued by all other coun-
tries combined, and nearly 1OO,OoO
more than had been issued by Great
Britain, Germany and France. mas
much as the growth Of manufacturing
industries is Intimately related to the
increase in the number of patents, the
prosperity of the country in one Of its
most important activities is indicated
by the patent office statistics. 1t IS
related that the special commissioner
appointed by the Japanese government
some years ago to investigate the
American patent system declared to a
| federal official that patents had made
| the United States a great nation, and
Japan had determined to establish a
similar system.
Nothing illustrates more strikingly
the progress of the country in the in
dustrial field than the records of the
patent office. The first patent issued
under the act Of 100, establishing the
federal patent system, was granted for
making potash, and the last patent is
sued at the close of the first century
Of the patent office was for an electro
typesetting machine. We have advanc-
ed an infinite distance in the develop
ment of the industrial arts from 1641,
when the general court Of Massachu-
sets granted a patent to Samuel Wins
low for a new method of making salt,
the first patent issued by the colonies;
and from the time of Edward H., in
whose reign the first recorded English
patent was issued to two friars and
two aldermen for an alleged discovery
of the philosophers stone"
1t was urged in times past in Eng.
land, where the modern patent systems
originated, that the privileges granted
to a p~atentee were essentially monopo
listic in character, and came within
the ban Of the common law. Patents
!, were at first di~scountenanced by thu
{ English courts, but a clearer construc
ton Of the common law relieved then
from the odium that attached to then
as a form of monopoly. Patent
E should be regarded in their true ligh
of rewards dictated by sound publ
policy to meritorious men who contrib
ute by their creation to the welfar
of the country and of the world
I This is the light in which the fran
ers OF the federal constitution regard
e ed patents. Charles Pinckney Pre-
posed that the Congress should be en-
a powered to establish rewards and i'm
y munities" for the promotion of ayr
culture, mmerce trades and MANI
$ features, but the constitutional sectio
in its final form gave to Congress th
e power to promote he progress of SC
ence and the useful arts by securin
l. for limited times to authors and II
d yentors the exclusive right to the
respective writings and discoveries
Philadelphia Ledger.