Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1961-09-10
A RECORD OF NvENTWENEss SssssssE ;
U. S. Potent No. 100000
By BOB HOCHSTEN
Contributing Writer

On Tuesday, with appropriate
fanfare, the United States Patent
Office will issue its 5000, O0Oth
patent.
The inventor who receives 1t
may be a budding Edison on the
research staff of a leading cor
poration, an assembly-line work
er in Detroit who has come up with
a gadget to speed things along, or
quite literally a fellow in Iowa
who has devised a better mouse
trap.
I'VE like to think it will be John
@. American" says Patent Office
official.
The document that he-or pos
sibly, she-will receive from the
patent office gives the inventor
exclusive rights for making. using
or selling the invention for II
years.
Patents, like inventions, come
in all sizes. Some are simply three
or four pages of drawings and de-
scriptive material. Or they can be
several hundred pages long, as in
the case of complex electronic
gadgetry.
All. patents, whether liIliputian
of gargantuan in size, are bound
in the same 7-by-11 folder. en-
bosSed with red seal and affixed
with the signature of the patent
office commissioner.
While they have been issued
since earliest colonial days, the
first by the Massachusetts, Gen
eral Court in 1641, it took the Act
of 1886 to set up the Patent Of
flee as distinctive entity, and
it is from this latter date that
the present system Of numbering
patents consecutively began.
Patent No. was issued to
Senator John Ruggles of Maine,
who was instrumental in getting
the Act of 1886 through Congress.
It was for a locomotive-steam
engine designed to give a multi
piled tractive power to the loco
motive and to prevent the evil
of the sliding of the wheels"
First Patent Bill
Before this time, since George
Washington signed the first pat
ent bill in 1890, a couple Of thou
sand patents had been assigned.
Responsibility for issuing them
under this legislation was placed
upon board which included the
Secretary of State, War and At
torney General.
Later legislation placed the
Patent Office in the Department
Of State; then in the Department
of Interior, and finally, in 1925,
the Patent Office was given it's
present home within the Com
merce Department.
To this office, currently headed
by Commissioner David L. Laid,
patent applications for new dis
coveries flow in an amending
stream. One thousand patents a
week are being issued.
So great are the number Of APP
plications for patents (about l.
500 week.. the Patent Offices
1890 employees, of which 1000
are examiners, face an almost in
surmountable task in whiting
down a backlog of 1875, 900 appli-
cations in various stages of pro-
cessing.
Compromising the problem is
the growing completely of de-
vices submitted to the Patent Of
flee. Thirty years ago, an examin-
er disposed of 100 applications an
nually. Today, he's lucky If he
handles half that number in a
year.
Some SIS per cent of the hopeful
inventors today have their appli-
cations eventually approved; and
about half the patents are COM
mercially used sometime or anoth-
er.
Most Of the patents awarded
to nontechnically trained indi-
viduals now are for mechanical
gadgetry.
Modern Completely
THE chemical and electrical
stuff has become too complex"
according to a Patent Office Of
fetal, you need a big lab for
those sort of things. But the fell
low trying to open a stuck win
dow on muggy day, or start his