Blanton, Thomas L. (further statement).

Hubbell, Eleanor and Albert (letter) -

Jackson, Robert H. (letter from office of Attorney General)

Senate Report No. 515, Forty-second Congress, third session (Committee

on Naval Affairs, House of Representatives).

III

HUBBELL PATENTS

THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 1938

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON PATENTS,

Washington, D. C'.

The subcommittee met at 10 a. m., Hon. Lawrence J. Connery (chairman) presiding.

Present: Members of the committee; also Thomas L. Blanton, on behalf of the claimants; and Commander Thomas L. Gatch, Assistant Judge Advocate General, and Lt. Comdr. R. K. Davis, Navy Department; Lt. Col. John G. Booton, and Mr. Arthur Adelman, Ordnance Bureau, War Department; Justin W. Macklin, First Assistant Commissioner of Patents; J. H. Mothershead, Chief, and Joseph Y. Houghton, Assistant, Patent Section, Department of Justice.

Mr. CONNERY. We have met this morning for the purpose of considering H. J. Res. 401, introduced by Mr. Bacon, of New York, "to preserve inviolate the integrity of patent rights, to insure patentees that even the Government cannot despoil them of their inventions, to lawfully acquire for national defense all patent rights to and proprietary interest in the patented Hubbell percussion device, and to authorize justice to be done the patentee as heretofore recommended by the Patent Committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives."

I will incorporate the resolution in the record at this point.

[H. J. Res. 401, 75th Cong., 1st sess.]

JOINT RESOLUTION To preserve inviolate the integrity of patent rights, to insure patentees that even the Government cannot despoil them of the inventions, to lawfully acquire for national defense all patent rights to and proprietary interest in the patented Hubbell percussion device, and to authorize justice to be done the patentee as heretofore recommended by the Patent Committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Whereas in the case of Cambell against James, in its opinion rendered January 9, 1882, the Supreme Court of the United States said:

*

"When the Government of the United States grants letters patent for a new invention, it confers upon the patentee an exclusive property in the patented invention which cannot be appropriated or used by the Government itself without just compensation; * * many inventions relate to subjects which can only be properly used by the Government, such as explosive shells, etc. to be attached to armed vessels; if it could use such invention without compensation, the inventors could get no return at all for their discoveries and experiments; * ** when inventions are desirable for Government use, it has been the general practice either for the Government to purchase them from the inventor, or pay the patentee a fair compensation for their use; the United States has no such prerogative as that which is claimed by the sovereigns of England to reserve a superior dominion and use in letters patent";

and

Whereas the Committee on Patents, first session, Forty-eighth Congress, in its favorable Report Numbered 604 accompanying H. R. 1375, certified to

the House of Representatives the history of the life and personal fortune spent by William Wheeler Hubbell on his inventions perfecting his eccentric shell and burning time and impact fuse for explosive shells, and his percussion-device for exploding the shells of rifled artillery, to be the following:

"Mr. Hubbell experimented at first with arrows, armed with percussion caps, to determine the effects of percussion by momentum at a distance to produce an explosion, and from this originated the idea of inventing explosive shells to operate upon concussion principles; five years later he had made percussion shells on this same principle, with a telescopic cap, but these were not sufficiently safe to use aboard ship; two years later he began making a burning-fuse shell to accomplish all of the desired results which were necessary for navy use, which were (1) to be perfectly safe on board ship, or absolutely impossible to accidentally explode before firing from the shell gun; (2) to be certain of ignition from the fire of the gun; (3) impossible for the sea or water to extinguish the fuse when it strikes or bounds on the water, on the American system of ricochet firing; (4) capable of ricochet on the sea without explosion from concussion with the waves; (5) capable of exploding the shell on time, and the time capable of adjustment; (6) capable of exploding the shell on impact or penetration a sufficient distance into an enemy's ship or fortification, regardless of the time or distance from the shell gun so long as it was within the ultimate time to which the fuse had been regulated, and to explode after impact in motion within the enemy's ships; (7) although exploding on impact in the enemy's vessels, yet also incapable of exploding on our own vessels using it, in case the fuse accidentally becomes ignited, and also incapable of ignition when used according to service regulations, except when inserted into our own guns and ready; (8) also capable of resisting all injurious effects of sea-service voyages; (9) the fuse also admitted of a great increase of the powder charge, and of the explosive power of the shell blast, and also an increase of range of flight, and great accuracy of fire or flight, both point-blank, and of ricochet or bounding on water";

and

Whereas, said Committee on Patents then certified as the facts that"Overcoming all difficulties and discouragements, by experiment and inventive power and free use of his money to build targets and conduct trials, he (Hubbell) completed and demonstrated the entire success of this invention on the 27th of April 1843, which was officially reported by Lieutenant Wurts to Commander Engle, and by him to Commodore Read at the Philadelphia navy-yard, who transmitted same to the Navy Department; the success of this invention called the "Thunderbolt shell' was publicly noticed; and on August 10, 1843 he (Hubbell) fired larger sizes of them, and destroyed the target at Sandy Hook; on January 22, 1846, he (Hubbell) prepared an application for a patent sworn to as his invention; in May 1846 the War and Navy Departments jointly authorized Colonel George Bomford to proceed to Philadelphia to confer and bargain with Mr. Hubbell to secure control of said invention for the United States, which resulted in Mr. Hubbell's agreeing not to then take out a patent, but to keep it secret, and Colonel Bomford on May 22, 1846, agreed that the United States should pay to Hubbell one dollar apiece for all used of the invention of a shell fuse; Mr. Hubbell took the precaution to file the said prepared application for a patent in the secret archives of the Patent Office on the 13th day of July 1846, where it now remains; the invention of the fuse organized with the shell and sabot, was introduced on sea-service trials in 1847 with strict orders (which yet exist) not to exhibit it to strangers, nor to anyone in the service, further than is necessary for its service on board ship; the said fuse with its shell system was adopted as the regular service Navy fuse in 1855; up to 1861 over 150,000 of the fuse and shell had been made for use";

and

Whereas, concerning Hubbell's percussion-device, the said Committee on Patents certified the following to be facts:

"The percussion apparatus for rifle shells, or elongated projectiles, was a subsequent invention; its history is this: after Mr. Hubbell had perfected the naval fuse, and made the Bomford contract, he discovered that he could make a perfect automatic percussion exploder to operate by inertia and visinertia, within a cylinder; he made and kept it a secret until he learned that Napoleon used rifled cannon in the Franco-Austrian War; then he applied for and obtained the patent January 24, 1860, its peculiarities being it did not ignite from the gun; it was not for spherical shells; was safe to use and carry in caissons