The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1918-12-27
WAR WAS GREAT
ST|MULANT TO
! The INVENTOR
Remarkable Work Of Bureau Of
Patents.
where RED TAPE IS NEEDED
More Than Million and Quarter De-
Vices Have Passed Through compIl-
Gated Channels Necessary to Get
Patents-High Explosives Play I'm
portant Part In Ideas Developed by
War-Many Freaks Offered.

Patents-High Explosives Play I'm
portant Part In Ideas Developed by
War-Many Freaks Offered.
ANY government bureau that has
done what 1t was established to do
more than million times has accom-
plished vast amount Of work. Prac-
ideally the entire machinery of that
bureau has revolved each single time.
AT the close of business November II,
1918, the United States patent office
had registered 1,2S4,956 patents, and
any one who has ever gone through
the complicated channels of getting
one thing patented will realize what
1t means to have recorded a million
and quarter of them. On an average,
ABOUT 800 patents are issued weekly.
Red tape attains very luxurious
growth in patent office business, but
necessarily. When more than 100000
machines and chemical compounds and
whatnots have been recognized as be-
Ing different from one another, some
care must be taken that the machines
and compounds that arrive daily are
not Implications In some important
feature Of those already on hand.
And care In a government bureau I'M
avoidably requires the use Of lot Of
red tape. There is book issued by
the commissioner of patents contain
Ing one hundred and sixteen pages Of
printed rules, draftsmen's symbols,
and legal forms, all part Of the pro-
cedure to be followed.
War Stimulates Inventors.
Naturally the war has been great
stimulant to the efforts Of inventors
and many man-killing devices have
been conceived or reached a high
stage Of development within the last
few years.
This has been q war In which high
explosives played a leading part, and
It is along that line that many Ameri-
can inventors turned their minds. For
instance, many applications have been
received for the issuance of patents on
hand grenades, all of which are SIM
ply based upon pound or so of some
powerful explosive in metal contain
er. The important part of grenade,
the part on which patent Is asked Is
ITS timing mechanism, by which 1t can
be set to explode at q certain time af-
ter 1t Is thrown. Then there are men
who have sent in drawings of rifle
grenades, practically the same as the
hand variety, save that they are fired
from a rifle; and "minenwerfer" or
trench mortars-small, squat cannon
which throw tremendous and very
destructive charge Of high explosive
over a short distance. Germany sur
rendered $4,000 of these minenwerfer
to the allied forces by the terms of the
armistice. which indicates that the al
lies have pretty high opinion Of their
usefulness.
These are old ideas. 1t required
war like this one to furnish an incen-
tive for developing them to a high de-
gree of effectiveness. The same is true
of the depth bomb, another wartime
favOrite Of the inventors, which put
the fear Of the Lord into German o.
boats. Dropped from the rear of a
torpedo boat destroyer, primed to ex-
plode at certain depth, 1t was the
most effective weapon the allies had
for combating the submarines. Pat
ents had been taken out on depth
bombs years before this war broke out,
but not until the submarine menace
became grave was the FASH can," as It
is lovingly called, really taken up, de-
,veloped and given chance to show
what 1t could do.
All Were Failures.
Then there have been patents grant
ed for aerial torpedoes. Sad to say,
none of them has turned out to be
practical, but there Is no doubt that
successful aerial torpedo will be a
reality before very long. The patent
examiners do not doubt It. They have
seen so many inventions perfected
which at first sight looked impossible,
that they hesitate to laugh at any
"freak" idea. Another aerial problem
for which men have tried to find the
solution is a device which would al
low an aeroplane to remain station
dry III tuC uiIs 4nC ouNuntdSc VI ouCi
an achievement in connection with
bombing expeditions can easily be i'm
agined.
Naturally, since the war began,
there has been steady stream Of freak
ideas into the old gray building at
Seventh and @ streets in Washington,
which houses the patent Office. Many
Of them are of no value and never will
be; others, as mentioned before, may
have the germ Of q long forward step
in the science Of war making. In the
case of impractical ideas, a polite let
ter is usually written to the inventor,
asking him to furnish working model
Of his machine or contrivance. and
that settles It. He cannot furnish
working model, because It won't work.
This is the invariable method followed
in connection with perpetual-motion
machines, those wonderful conceptions
that are expected to run forever with
out any power other than their own.
Zee Enemy Patents-