The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-08-30
Alien Patents For Askino, And $15 Fee
 33,OOO German
 Business Ideas
 Bring New Godeets
By FRETDERICK c. OTHMAN United Press Staff Correspondent

ny fhEIDERlCh C. OIHMAN
 United Press Staff Correspondent
 Washington, Aug. 30-UP)-Our governments attitude, as you know from sad experience with the tax col lector, is gimme, gimme. It seldom gives anything away, except room and board in LeavenWorth to na- tional bank robbers.
 So when you run into a multi million dollar gift from the govern ment, free to anybody for the ask ing, it is news. It also is amazing.
 Anyhow: sus s@
 when we went to war we confis- cated all the patents of our enemies. there were 33,000 of them, mostly German, and many the basis of enormous businesses. The Japanese patents, running to about 200, were about what you'd expect. How to make serpent wine. How to rejuve- nate yourself with injections of the dried venom from Chinese toads Stuff like that. We can skipp the Japanese.
 Official Santa Claus
 All the enemy patents, good and bad, are under control of the Alien Property Custodian, James E. Mark man. I guess you could call him the governments only official Santa Claus, because he'll give you abso- lutely free teXcept for Sl5 book keeping feel the right to use in your business any one of the foreign inventions.
 His file cases are treasure troye of industrial development in ma chinery, chemicals, medicines, tex tiles, and trick gadgets. It takes three pages just to list improved coffee pots. Eye-bulging are the volumes concerning yitinins, synthetic drugs, coal tar dyes, steel alloys, electron- ics, man-made rubber, automobiles, optics, plastics and cigaret lighters.
 There are nearly 50 of the latter, including one that's easy on your thumb. A miniature battery pro- duces it's blaze.
 I dipped haphazzardly into the patents and had a talk with Dex- ter North, chief of the patent use and development section. He has produced lists of inventions by sub jectS for Would-be manufacturers, 5000 of whom 50 far have taken li- censes. He cannot hazard a guess as to the potential worth Of his fileS.. The figure might be Sl00, 0,000,- GOO; 1t might be 10 times that.
 Eiectronic Oven
 Two American firms soon will be making a German electronic oven. It will bake pies; it will kill microbes in milk without heating 1t, and brew coffee without boiling.
 In the works is a pocket calculat- or that adds, subtracts, multiplies, and divides. There Is a pencil whose lead changes instantaneouSly into any of SIX colorS. There are sprays which kill the weeds, but not the grass, gears for bicycles; an electric fan you can carry in your pocket, and whole volumes Of new ways to prepare foods.
 These include processes for talk ing the caffeine out Of coffee, keeping flower from getting mouldy; preserving fruits in brickettes; converting soya beans into lard and even breakfast food: making ice cream on production line, and keeping the insides of tin cans from turning black.
 This later process is one of the few from Japan that our own tn- ventors hadn't thought of first.
 I can only suggest, finally, that you don't write me. Drop a line di- rect to the Alien Property Custod- ian. Putting these inventions to use for the benefit of Americans is one of his jobs and he'll be glad to hear from you.