The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-02-03
INVENTIONS FOR 1906
Break All Records and Combines
Lead in Patents.
washington Correspondence Chicago
Record Herald.)

Record Herald.)
Edward 3. Moore. assistant commits
siCner of patents, tells me that the
greatest activity of inventors during
the last year was in devising improve
ments in automobiles, I'm air and gas
engines, in electrical apparatus and
wireless telegraphy. Nineteen hundred
and six, he declared, was the greatest
year for inventions on record It is
not possible to give the exact number
of patents granted at present. but in
both respects the record will be broken.
Nor can | say anything about the
commercial value of the inventions of
1906, in comparison with other years. q"
said Mr.. Moore, because we have no
data concerning such matters i'm the Of
flee. We have q corps OF 300 exam
liners. all college-bred men and many
of them graduates i'm law, but they
have no means of judging the CONNER
cial value of the inventions which pass
through their hands.
The applications for patents today
come almost entirely from professional
inventors" continued Mr. Moore men
who are trained to devise and discover
new methods. new processes, new ma
chinery and improvements upon old
methods, processes and machinery.
And they are paid salaries-in many
turing corporations. because OF their
genius i'm the line of invention. The
inventor of this age is not a long
haired crank. although we occasionally
see one of that species. He is man
of science. Nor are the inventions OF
today the results of accident. They
are the result of study. the application
of scientific knowledge, combined with
experience.
'"rhe largest number of applications
for patents come from the great trusts,
which employ hundreds of professional
inventors TO devise Improvements upon
their machinery. Some people declared
several years ago, when the large man.
ufacturers began to combine their in
terests, that the relaxation of compe-
tition would be the end of invention;
that rival manufacturers, having
joined their interests, would no longer
attempt 10 improve their machinery OF
introduce novelties ard cOnveniences
IL was predicted that the army of in
ventors employed i'm the mechanical in
dustries of the country would be dis
charged and that manufacturing cor
porations would go on making the same
old things in the same old way as lone
as people would continue 10 buy them
But that theory has not worked out
The contrary is the case There Is
more activity i'm the Improvement OF
machinery and in the inventions of new
devices since the trusts became fash
ionable than ever before, and the big
gest part OF the business OF the paten'
office comes from the great trusts
the United States Steel corporation, the
harvester trust, the automobile trust
the four great electrical companies-tht
General Electric of Lynn. he Edison
OF Schenectady, the Westinghouse OF
Pittsburg and the Bullock OF Cincin.
natl. Those and other great corpora
tons employ the same inventors and
show the same enterprise i'm making
improvements that was shown befors
the trusts were born.
There is considerable activity il
wireless biography and in aerial navi-
cation. Formerly flying machines and
perpetual motion attracted the atten-
ton OF cranks only but nowadays der
ial navigation is receiving the seEiou:
attention Of practical. scientific men