Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-09
BEST INVENTIVE YEAR
More Applications Filed and
Patents Granted.
RESULTS OF DEEP STUDY
Devices of Scientific Men Who Work
for High Salaries.
EMPLOYED BY THE TRUSTS
Some Odd Epitaphs - Abolition of
Cruel Punishments in China
Whiskers and Mustaches.
RESULTS OF DEEP STUDY
EMPLOYED BY THE TRUSTS
BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.

BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS.
Written for The Star and the Chicago Record
Herald.
Mr.. Edward B. Moore assistant commits
sioner of patents, tells me that the greatest
activity of inventors during the past year
was In devising Improvements in automo-
biles, In air and gas engines, in electrical
apparatus and wireless telegraphy. Nine
teen hundred and six, he declared was the
greatest year for inventions on record. 1t
is not possible to give the exact number of
applications flied or the number of patents
granted at present, but in both respects the
record will be broken.
Nor can I say anything about the COM
mercial value of the inventions of 1906, in
comparison with other years. said Mr..
Moore, because we have no data concern
ing such matters in the office. We have
corps of 800 examiners, all college-bre
men, and many of them graduates in law.
but they have no means of judging the
commercial value of the inventions which
pass through their hands.
The applications for patents today come
almost entirely from professional inven-
tors" continued Mr.. Moore, men who are
trained to devise and discover new methods,
new processes, new machinery and improve
ments upon old methods, processes and ma
chnery. And they are paid salaries-in
many cases very large salaries-by manu-
featuring corporations, because of their ge-
MUS in the line of invention. The inventor
of this age is not a long haired crank al
though we occasionally see one of that spe-
ces. He is a man of science. Nor are the
inventions today the results of accident.
They are the result of study. the apphca-
ton of scientific knowledge, combined with
experience.
The largest number of applications for
patents come from the great trusts, which
employ hundreds of professional inventors
to devise improvements upon their machin-
cry. Some people declared severai years
ago, when the large manufacturers began to
combine their interests, that the relaxation
of competition would be the end of inven-
tion that rival manufactures having joined
their interests would no longer attempt to
improve their machinery or introduce novel
ties and conveniences. 1t was predicted
that the army of inventors employed in the
mechanical industries of the country would
be disc harged and that manufacturing cor
porations would go making the same old
things in the same old way as long as peo-
pie would continue to buy them. But that
theory has not worked out. The contrary
is the case. There is more activity in the
Improvement OF machinery and In the In
ventions of new devices since the trusts be-
came fashionable than ever before, and the
biggest part of the business of the patent
office comes from the great trusts-the
United States Steel Company, the Harves-
ter Trust, the Automobile Trust, the four
great electrical comprehensive General
Electric of Lynn, the Edison of ScheEec-
tady, the Westinghouse of Pittsburg and
the Bulloch of Cincinnati. These and other
great corporations employ the same inven-
tors and show the same enterprise i'll MAX
ing improvements that was SHOWN De1ore
the trusts were born.
There is considerable activity in wire
less telegraphy and in aerial navigation.
Formerly flying machines and perpetual
motion attracted the attention of cranks
only. but nowadays aerial navigation is
receiving the serious attention of prac-
teal scientific men,.