The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-01-31


now takes IN inventor over . year
to get the simplest patent in the
United States. and after he has got
ten = patent it is far from aaording
him the perfect protection which It
10 supposed to give. The value of q
United States patent il decreasing
year by year.
These are the outstanding facts
which have been presented to con-
gress in connection with the patent
Office bill which is now being con-
sidered there. They are due to
small, underpaid force and q con-
seQusnt labor turnover which
would be ruinous to any private
concern.
That our patent system is not ef-
dcient is due to NO fault of it, en-
ployes. II is almost impossible to
get congress to add even a few
more examiners to the star Of the
bureau. though the work is obvi-
ously getting heavier all the time.
When an invention is presented to
the bureau it Is presumed that
steps will be taken to decide wheth-
er It Is eligible for . patent. And
that 10 what the examiners try to
decide. But there are more than
1900, 900 United States patents, and
while these are divided into classes
and subclasses, the work of COM
pairing the new invention with all
Of its kind il . long and exacting
job. And, as the number of pat
ents il increased by some $4,000
each year, it necessarily takes
longer each year to make searches,
or else they must be less thorough.
The latter alternative is alone DOS
sible, because business brought to
the patent Office is steadily on the
increase IS the inventiv- genius of
the most inventive people on earth
flourishes.
A Slow System.
This is the disheartening situa-
ton which the patent examiners
face. 1t now takes at least a year
and a half to put patent through
the average patent, with no COM
plications. And unless the force
working on patents is increased to
meet the heavier work, and salaries
raised sufficiently to attract and
hold competent men, it will take
! longer.
Another result of an inadequate
and underpaid patent force is that
a United States patent grant il
coming to mean less and less. One
judge recently told the house patent
committee that patent was not a
real protection to the inventor until
it had been through the courts
generally two or more of them, be.
cause the decision of a circuit court
in one ,ction of the country might
not be upheld by a court governing
another section. In other words, il
Is almost part of patent procedure
to expect a law suit to prove pri.
ority of your invention or that you
are not infringing on some one
else's rights.
Patent examiners have never
been allowed to do their work thor.
oughly, as the law provides. At thu
very beginning of the system, il
1890, the statutes decreed that t.
be patentable an invention mus
not only have been patented, but il
must not have been previousl,
known or used in this country
These last two conditions were re
written into the patent examina
tion system in 1886, but they hav,
never been taken seriously by tn
,overworked patent Office.
AS matters stand now, wha
chance has an examiner to know i
an invention is really new provid
ed it has not been patented b,
some one else? All the examine
can do is to make a cursory surve,
OF patents in the particular elias
to which the device longs to Sc
that the same idea is not embodie,
there. He also decides whethe
theoretically the invention is usefu