OF THE Patent Office Society Published monthly by the Patent Office Society Office of Publication 3928 New Hampshire Ave., Washington, D. C. Subscription $2.50 a year Single copy 25 cents EDITORIAL BOARD Wm. I. Wyman, Editor-in-chief for this Issue A. H. Winkelstein, Case editor M. O. Price, Periodical abstracter. G. P. Tucker E. R. Cole W. B. Johnson M. L. Whitney, Business Manager (Room 182, U. S. Patent Office.) 3928 New Hampshire Ave., Washington, D. C. N. E. Eccleston, Circulation. Entered as second class matter, September 17, 1918, at the post office at Washington. D. C., under the act of March 3, 1879. Publication of signed articles in this journal is not to be understood as an adoption by the Patent Office Society of the views expressed therein. The editors are glad to have pertinent articles submitted. VOL. VIII. February, 1926. No. 6 COMMENT. THE AMERICAN PATENT SYSTEM. Elsewhere in this number will be found an article setting forth the benefits of the American patent system. It is thought that it will be of timely interest in view of the discussions of the Patent Office which have recently been published, some of which have been noted in the JOURNAL. There has been an increasing and critical scrutiny of the patent system of late years, much of it based on misconception of its functions and an inadequate knowledge of its beneficial results. A great part of the questioning is founded however on defects which have grown around the system, and the article referred to is not intended to convey an impression that in this imperfect world the Patent Office is a perfected organism. On the contrary, a system that has not been substantially changed for over two generations and that has expanded without conscious direction necessarily challenges inquiry. But whatever benefits the system has conferred, and they are substantial and memorable, should be taken into consideration in weighing the merits of these controversial inquiries. NEW STEEL CASES FOR PATENT COPIES ON PUBLIC VIEW. During the last few years there have been installed in the galleries above the G Street corridor of the building steel cases for the storage of soft copies of patents. This equipment was designed originally for the purpose of making accurate "pulling" of the copies and to save wastage. They fulfilled these expectations to the utmost extent, but they conferred other advantages which were found highly beneficial. Copies are selected from two to three times the speed capable under old conditions. An extension of this equipment has just been installed in the G. Street basement coridor adjacent Ninth Street and is therefore capable of intimate public scrutiny. It is thought desirable to give notice that this equipment is thus accessible for inspection as it provides the most radical physical change or introduction that the Office has ever experienced. It will be noted in what presentable order the copies are filed and what the general convenience of the arrangement is. The cases were designed on a radically new theory and they have no counterpart elsewhere, either in the government service or in private affairs. Their installment has cut down a number of copy pullers in the territory occupied by them by fifty per cent, has reduced the inaccuracy by fully ninety per cent and has probably saved the government over twenty-five thousand dollars yearly in avoidance of waste copies. |