Semi-weekly herald., 1912-04-25
THE UNITED STATES
PATENT LAWS SUFFICIENT

WASHINGTON, d. c., April 23.-
Since the decision in the Dick Henry
Monograph case there has been a
general effort on the part of the law
makers to write into the statutes an
amendment to the patent laws of the
country making it impossible for a
company to control supplies necessary
to the complete success of patented
article. The lawyers of congress have
been studying the Dick case in the
light of Chief Justice Whites dis
senting opinion with view of cor
recting what many believe might be-
come menace to business. And yet
a most careful inquiry among repre-
sentative business men does not show
any crying demand for the legislation
sought, for the reason that the judg-
ment the supreme court in the Dick
Henry case had been the law of the
land for fifteen or twenty years.
When it is recalled that there are
nearly $750,000,00O invested in pat
ented articles, in this country, which
might be directly affected if radical
legislation were enacted, it would seem
that good sense and good judgment
demanded that no hasty or ill con-
sidered legislation, should be toler-
ated. Big concerns with millions of
money behind them are engaged in the
sale of patented articles themselves
and are not seeking to control the
articles that go with the patent, the
Dick-Henry case being remarkable in
it's isolation for the decision in that
case is peculiarly academic having
come up to the supreme court on
certificate with an agreed-upon state
ment of facts for the purpose of get.
ting the courts judgment on the moot
question whether an individual or cor.
poration is permitted to sell patent
ed article with the stipulation that n
certain part of the process had to be
of the class specified in the bill of
sale otherwise the sale was null and
void.
The statute of monopolies came over
in the Mayflower with the Puritans
and when the general court of Massa.
chusetts granted the first patent to
John jerks for scythe, with which
our forefathers gathered their grain,
they provided that no one else should
make that scythe unless it were diff
ferent from the one made by Jenks.
That same keynote is in the cnnsti-
tuition and was in the first patent law
adopted by congress in 1870 and has
been present in every succeeding pat
ent law of the United States. That
is that the patent law of the United
States is not intended for the crea-
tion or introduction of manufactures
but is intended to encourage inventors
to Immediately disclose inventions so
that a patent may be granted and
that the public may then have on rec
ord the disclosure of that invention
That is the bargain made between the
inventor and the public. The patent
office is filled with the records of in
ventions which have established new
industries which have benefited the
public nightly and there are hun
dreds Of arts today whose original
creation was due to the incentive-piy
en- invention, and inventions which
would have been blocked if there had
been requirement of working with
in given time, or taxation or in fact
any restriction upon the unlimited pat
ent rights authorized by the consti-
tuition, and granted by the patent law.
The patent laws Of England and
Canada are in effect tariff laws: the
patent laws of continental Europe are
revenue laws, all directed against
American inventions. Their provi-
sions with respect to licensing and
working and taxation are purely self
ish and have nothing Of the spirit Of
the patent In ws ~ kho TYr;t.I cA-A