Mr. FENNING. Right. Possibly I should not have said that. Possibly I should have said serious consideration with a possible view of approving the bill; because there have been introduced in the Senate during this session 40 or 50 bills referred to the committee, and, as far as I know, hearings have been held on none of them. I am not particularly interested in that phase of the matter, so if I have stated something I should not have said I am very glad to withdraw it. I said that for the purpose of saying to you why we are more or less unprepared at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that. I have no doubt it will be two weeks before the committee is ready to make its report, so you are at liberty to speak to your people.

Mr. FENNING. I may then have an opportunity to explain the matter to them.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. FENNING. May I now say with respect to this matter that, first, for something like 40 or 50 years there has been no regular statute providing for the extension of patents. That was the condition prior to about 1870. Patents issued prior to 1870 were, at the termination of their 14 years, possibly extended at the discretion of the Commissioner of Patents. Since 1890, unless I am mistaken, there have been two patents extended by special acts. Both of those patents were designed patents for badges of patriotic societies. There have been, as I understand it, since 1890, no mechanical patents extended by the Congress by special act.

Some years ago, shortly after the close of the war, a bill was introduced to extend generally patents granted to soldiers who had been abroad during the war; and, consequently, in theory at least, had not been able to do anything toward extending their patents or taking care of their patents. That bill as introduced was in the general form of the bill you have before you, substantially saying that any patent of a soldier might be extended.

Hearings were held. It took three or four sessions to get that bill enacted into actual legislation, and when it was enacted into legislation it had not a single section of a few sentences but 4 or 5 or 6 sentences placing around it those safeguards which always should be placed around any bill which endeavors to extend a patent.

Let me say to you, if I may, one thing which always should be taken into consideration with respect to a patent. Patents are granted for inventions. The invention may be a broad invention or it may be a narrow invention. If this invention is a broad invention, it covers not merely the specific thing shown but a great many other things which will subsequently be introduced.

For example, let me refer to Mr. Bell's telephone patent issued in the seventies, and say that while that patent was alive, during the 17-year period, upward of a thousand patents were issued for improvements on that telephone, and no one of those improvements could be used by anyone without paying tribute to Bell while his patent was alive. The patentees of those improvements expected to get the benefit of their patents after the Bell patent expired. They did.

Now, here you have a bill to extend a patent, which it is suggested is the last, I believe they say, of their relatively broad patents. If that patent is extended for 8 years, it means that every patent tribu

tary to this patent granted during the 8-year period after this patent was granted will be covered up and the owners of those patents will never get any benefit from them, because they will expire before the 8-year period expires. If you are going to extend this patent, you should extend all that have been granted during that 8-year period; and you will see the endless line.

Again, if a start is made-and this is a thing which we patent lawyers are more afraid of than anything else in extending patentswith a man coming here and saying, "I have not conducted my business properly and therefore I would like to have my patent extended "-there would be no end to the number of extensions that would be presented to you.

Let me say here this: You have a letter from a stockholder who says the officers of the association were so negligent they would not pay the fee to have the patent extended. Again he says he has been a stockholder for 10 or 20 years and the affairs of the company have been mismanaged during that time and that he now would like to have 8 years more in which to try to get the affairs of the company properly managed.

If it seems reasonable to get the affairs of this organization in proper shape so that mismanagement will not occur, it seems to me that the 10 or 20 years which they have had already should be sufficient, and that the other innocent inventors who have done work on these additional matters should not be penalized, and neither should the public as a whole.

Remember, gentlemen, the purpose of the patent statute is not simply to protect the inventor. The underlying purpose of the patent statute is to get for the whole public, free from the patent monopoly at the end of the limited 17-year period, the right to use the invention. You are taking away from the public by extending this patent for an 8-year period the right which the public has assumed it would have at the end of that 8-year period.

I do not know what the conditions are here, but this may happen, and it is entirely possible: If this invention is of importance, it may be that there are manufacturers in the country at the present time who are now preparing to manufacture and put on the market this particular device, the patent to which is to expire in three months. They may say, "It will take us three months to get our organization ready to manufacture it," and they may now be preparing to manufacture this particular thing.

As I say, I have come here with no preparation and I simply give you one or two sketchy ideas that we have on the subject.

Thank you very much.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. I would like to ask you a question, sir.
Mr. FENNING. Yes, sir.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. Do you know that in the Seventieth and Seventy-first Congress, when a bill was presented for the extension of this patent, that a petition signed by 17,000 stockholders was presented along with the bill; and notwithstanding that the bill did not pass either the Seventieth or Seventy-first Congress?

Mr. FENNING. I do not know; no sir. It is rather refreshing for me to find that out. Thank you very much.

Let me make a suggestion to you; that if you do propose to approve any particular bill of this character, that you look at the bill

which provided for extending patents for soldiers, and place in this bill the restrictions and limitations that were placed in that bill.

Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Sullivan.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE E. SULLIVAN, ATTORNEY,
WASHINGTON, D. C.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your full name?

Mr. SULLIVAN. George E. Sullivan.

The CHAIRMAN. Your address?

Mr. SULLIVAN. 226 Woodward Building, Washington, D. C.
The CHAIRMAN. You reprsent the proponent to this bill?

Mr. SULLIVAN. I represent the proponents; yes, sir; and I have represented them for slightly over 12 years.

The matter came into my hands in December, 1919. I carried it into court, the Supreme Court of the District in March, 1920, a little over three months after the case came to my hands, having to investigate the matter during the intervening period.

The case that I carried into court is a case known as an internalaffairs case, involving mismanagement of a corporation, the court having jurisdiction, the corporation being created here, to deal with that housecleaning and to throw the officers out and prevent further misconduct and mismanagement, and it may give us damages and we may have the aid of the court in putting the corporation properly on its feet.

I should say at the beginning that it is an error or the suggestion is erroneous that 17,000 stockholders have signed any petition that has ever come to this Congress. This is the third bill that has been presented, and it is the only one that has had any hearing of any kind up to this minute before any committee.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. Let me interrupt you there. There was not any petition filed by stockholders as to the bills introduced either in the Seventieth or Seventy-first Congress?

Mr. SULLIVAN. Nothing in the way of a petition. There have been many of these stockholders that have written and are writing letters to their Senators and Congressmen and to the committee.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. Then that statement that numerous stockholders did file petitions or letters is incorrect?

Mr. SULLIVAN. It is incorrect in the way of there being some formal petition that any thousands of stockholders or any number of stockholders have signed.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. Which way is it not incorrect?

Mr. SULLIVAN. It is correct in that there are probably thousands of them who have petitioned in the way of writing individual letters to the committee and to various Senators and Congressmen. In that respect I should say it is correct.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. Then there were petitions in the form of letters.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. If not in the way of formal petitions. Mr. SULLIVAN. That is correct. The bill that preceded this was introduced also by Senator Capper, and it is identically the same in language, only it has a different number from the one which is now

pending. The previous Senate bill introduced by Senator Capper was S. 4087, and I have a letter in my hand from the then chairman of the Senate Patents Committee, dated June 18, 1930, expressing his regret that he had not been able to get a quorum of the committee present to get a hearing, and that with the rush of work of Congress in the closing days it seemed almost impossible to get a committee hearing before the adjournment of that session.

I have another letter, dated January 13, 1931, from Senator Waterman, then chairman of the Senate Patents Committee in the same Congress but a different session, referring to the bill and again explaining that the pressure of business before the Senate Patents Committee had been such that he had not been able to get a hearing. He said: "You can be sure, however, if the bill can be reached it will be given merited consideration."

So that there has not been either consideration of the merits or any decision to disregard any consideration of the merits at any time by this committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Am I right in my understanding that the bill never was reported back to the Senate by the Patents Committee? Mr. SULLIVAN. By what?

The CHAIRMAN. By this committee.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Never.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. By either this committee or the House? The CHAIRMAN. Has any action ever been taken by a committee of the House?

Mr. SULLIVAN. No.

The CHAIRMAN. And no hearings have been held there, either? Mr. SULLIVAN. This bill did not get out of the Senate, so it did not get into the House.

The CHAIRMAN. It was not introduced in the House at the same time?

Mr. SULLIVAN. No.

The CHAIRMAN. There has been no similar bill introduced in the House?

Mr. SULLIVAN. None that I know of.

Senator CAPPER. Mr. Chairman, I made several requests a year ago and two years ago for a full hearing, but the chairman said that while he really hoped to have a chance to give it a hearing, it seemed impossible.

The CHAIRMAN. It would appear, then, that this bill has never received consideration by either the House of the Senate.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Never at any time. And there are a great many Members of both bodies who are very much interested in having an opportunity to consider it, from the various letters they have written me and their constituents who have sent letters to me.

I would like to say at the outset that as I have spent 12 years with this, I would grealy appreciate it-I am going to speed on as rapidly as I can-if the committee will give me such time as will enable me to present the situation in a demonstrable way. I have the instrument itself here. I have the patents here. I have the documentary evidence explaining the reasons why this condition exists, causing, in my judgment, a proper showing for the extension of the patent.

I may say at this place that I am not talking about a subject with which I am entirely ignorant. I am a general practitioner of law, but I grew up in the patent business. I was with the late James L. Norris.

Senator GOLDSBOROUGH. Twelve years with this patent ought to qualify you, surely, to speak upon it.

Mr. SULLIVAN. I became a registered practitioner in the Patent Office, I think, in 1901, over 30 years ago, before I took up the general practice of law. I also wrote an essay which was awarded two prizes in the Georgetown Law School in 1902 on the subject of The Law of Acquisition by Intellectual Labor, which dealt with the whole logic and fabric of the patent system.

I am not going into this from the standpoint of trying to befriend some people who would like to have some plums handed out to them. I am taking it up basically. I concede in the beginning that only in the most unusual case is there any patent extended, and unless I can show this to be such a case I would be the first to vote against it.

Moreover, I was myself opposed to filing application for a patent extension until I had uncovered in the course of years-these matters were not standing out, staring me in the face when I took up the case-until I got into the files through the receivership of the court and the injunction of the court. Until I got into these incriminating documents showing this outrageous condition, I refused to make any application for the extension of any of these patents, for the reason I do not believe in patent extension generally.

This com

Let me make this further clarification at the outset. pany had something like 30 patents, starting with the basic patent, which was issued in 1900, up to and including this patent we are talking about here, which was issued June 8, 1915. They are all gone except this. The basic patent has expired. Anyone who wanted to compete under any one of the expired patents has been at liberty to do so since 1917, which is now 15 years ago. Because of insuperable objections against the extension of an expired patent, we have not asked for it, although as a matter of justice to the stockholders we would ask for it, but we are considering the public-policy end of it.

This extension is only asked for a particular patent, covering a particular device that does not interfere with anybody else using any other device that they want. It is a device, however, that we believe to be superior to any other.

On that basis we want, because of these outrageous devilments of the most powerful interests in this country, an opportunity to these stockholders to both help themselves and help the public, by letting them have a slight edge, now that they have shown the villainy, and ridding the company of this octopus, so that they can go ahead and put the machine on the market, letting anybody else compete, if they want, with any of the other devices, but letting us have this slight additional patent time to enable us to give the public the benefit of it; and I will be able to demonstrate that, unless they are given it, the public is not going to be given any form of this device, because the powerful interests involved do not intend to have it manufactured or to allow anybody to manufacture it who should attempt to do so.