The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-08-18

been worked out and patents applied Tor.
What's the use? Here sits !; man in
Massachusetts with powerful grip
OH the industry that. with the help OF
! MAKE an invention valueless unless nc
OWNS II and gees profit in 1t for him.
How This astonishing scheme is worked
Is explained by Mr. Welliver thus:
American patent laws allow patents to
be secured without requiring that the
article he promptly put on the market,
Other countries require the article 10 be
produced in one or two years. or the
patent lapses. So. il Is alleged the trust
takes out patents here and abroad,
promptly manufactures and sells the new
invention abroad, and thus gives foreign
ers an advantage. And II American
goes abroad 10 buy machines and bring
them home. he meets 60 per cent tarilf
at our ports.
Many Foreign Plants.
The shoe machinery trust has plants
at Frankfort, Germany, leicester. Eng
land: Paris France, and ore in Canada
There is sharp competition In those coun-
tries with other shoe machine makers,
and so shoe manufacturers are Kept sup
piled with the latest devices. In this
country. on the contrary, many devices
are patented but not produced for long
periods. / have before me a list OF
thirty-two patents owned by the trust.
the applications for which. in the Wash
ington patent office were kept pending
eight years or more.
How this helps suppress competing
inventors Is illustrated In the case OF
Merton D. Phelan OF Dorchester. Mass,
who. IN 1906, applied for a patent on
lasting machine Improvement In De-
cember, 1903, the patent office notified
him that his application was charged
trust. On hearing. Phelan won: but In
terference was then charged with anoth-
er trust application. This application
had been filed in 1898. and amended from
claims that were put In interference
with Phelan's application were put In
this trust application by amendment of
April Q, 1910!
ent lawyers and the shoe machinery d.
vision of the patent office at Washington
have at times been the subject OF most
caustic criticism. Elaborate dinners ana
eXtravasant en- en.srtainmcnt for patent Of
flee people are recognized as regular
parts of trust methods of dealing with
the patent office. A former examiner
patent office, Mr.. Charles A, Mason, was
hired away from the government by the
trust, and is now It's chief technical eX-
pert i'll patent afTai,Se
In the newer and more honorable po-
lticai era now facing us, one OF the many
house cleaning jobs which will be un~
dertalen with cheer and delight VIII be
that OF the patent office, This spectacle
is worthy OF your consideration and your
ire.
''rhe very fact that a powerful trust
can nurse IT'S malicious delays along
through the patent office year after year
10 the distress OF inventors and loss OF
the public. is proof that n house-clean-
ing is needed, Ii this story OF the shoe
trust does no more than call
your attention to the wretched opera
tions OF the patent laws 1t Will not have
been written in vain.
Sitting Competition.
"Apropos OF the advantages the for
eiGn manufacturer is declared 10 get
through the trust, there is a little story
about the war of competition in England
The United company's British branch
has not yet completely smothered COM
petition in England. but lt Is doing its
best by familiar Standard Oil methods
An English company makes a crew-wire
which il sells so cheap that
prefer il to the Cnited's
leased machines. Wherefore the United
sells British shoemakcrs brass screw
wire for twenty cents n pound and iron
screw wire for nine cents. These prices
are so low as To offset the cheaper cost
OF The British machine which uses the
wire
"Thc same wires that are sold in Eng
cents. respectively, are sold in America
for hfty-four and thirty-two cents. ac-
cording TO statements published by rival
Of the trust. He charges that this price
cutting III England is done purely for
the purpose of driving the British rival
machine out OF the market.
But there is no such compe tition as
that in America. The trust has no com
petition 10 fight here"