The Washington herald., 1911-01-22

A great deal has been written about the
'-freak'' inventions for which applications
have been made and sometimes patents
have been granted in the past therefor.
A freak patent is now, however, a
thing of the past.
; The applications allowed by the ex-
aminers as patentable are now reviewed
each week by the Commissioner and as
sistant commissioners before the patents
are signed, and occasionally an allowed"
application is withheld from patent. This
has resulted in granting patents which
are more meritorious and have much
greater degree of validity attached to
them This has been made possible by
having a competent examining force.
Edward B. Moore. the present Commits
sioner of Patents. has been in the Patent
Office twenty-seven years. Mr.. Moore
started in at the bottom and has grad
ually risen from the position of assistant
examiner to law clerk, principal examiner,
assistant commissioner. and finally to the
present place at the head of the Patent
Office.
He is the first commissioner ever ap-
pointed from inside the Office. Mr.. Moore
~
work with Congress to make the neces-
sary improvements. The crying need was
for better salaries for the examiners. in
order to hold the men in the corps. who
were then resigning at the rate of Is per
cent a year. These examiners are all
college men. and those that had been IN
the service three or four years were
graduates of law both general and patent
law. The loss of such men to the service
meant Il great deal. Commissioner Moore
prevailed upon Congress to increase their
salaries and numbers Although 1t was a
Presidential election year and deficit
existed of some Ss00oO.0o0 in the Treas
ury. the Congress increased the salaries
which had not bean increased before since
1913. or for period of sixty years.
Got More Pay for Employees.
The new salaries were fixed at S,50o
for admission. then to $500: s, 100 400,
and $500 per annum. The examining
force was also augmented by some sew
enty additional examiners. The standard
of the entrance examination was raised
and it now includes higher mathematics.
chemistry. both organic and inorganic.
physics. technics, French and German.
reading and describing of mechanical
drawings in technical terms. The exam
lining corps is now the superior of any
like body in the world.
The Patent OHicc had been steadily
growing since the first patent was signed
by President Washington July 80. 1i9l to
nearly one million United States patents
and about two million foreign patents.
and the force now required to handle
this vast business is nearly Loco.
The great bulk OF foreign and domestic
patents. as well as the thousands of books
in the Scientific Library, has never been
digest.d Mr.. Moore brought this matter
10 the attention of the Appropriations
Committee of Congress. where all the as
sistance ever given the Patent Office in
the past few years has come from. and
that committee, realizing the great neces-
Sity for classification and digest OF this
mass of material both in the interest
OF economy and the facility for making
accurate search both by examiners aid
the outside public, provided force of
more than twenty examiners.
The classifi cation division was establish
ed. and has now finished nearly one-half
of the classification of this material.
This has resulted in a greater facility for
search. which means the issuance of bet
ter patents When this great work is
completed it will be a comparatively