GROWTH OF AMERICAN PATENTS.

By KARL FENNING,

Assistant Commissioner of Patents.

Those of us who have spent our lives dealing with patents are proud of the fact that they have been recognized aids to industry since before the Constitution of the United States was adopted.

Several of the Colonies granted patents for inventions before the Revolution, and the Constitution itself provides that Congress shall have power "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries."

President Washington in his first annual address to Congress in January, 1790, said:

I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home.

The first patent act had already been introduced in 1789 in the first session of the first Congress. It was actually passed and became a law April 10, 1790. It provided for a committee made up of the Secretary of State, then Thomas Jefferson; the Attorney General, then Edmund Randolph; and the Secretary of War, then Henry Knox, to examine applications for patent.

During the five months the Government remained in New York only two patents were granted. These were signed by President Washington and related to making Pot and Pearl Ashes and to Making Candles, which later of course have been superseded by the more recently patented incandescent lamps. We have no copies of these patents, but we have a copy of the third patent is

sued to William Pollard of Philadelphia, after the Government had moved to Philadelphia.

It appears that Pollard brought from England one of the wonderful new Arkwright spinning machines, but that he was unable to operate it satisfactorily. Pollard explains that after much labor and expense and the use of much Yankee ingenuity, he was able to improve the English machine and make it work and a patent was granted to him on Dec. 18, 1790.

During the three years that the Act of 1790 was in force only 57 patents were granted. Jefferson took a deep personal interest in the applications and examined them so carefully and thoroughly that it was almost impossible to get a patent. The public became much disgruntled so that in 1793 Congress passed a new patent act providing for the issuing of patents on the deposit of a description of a new invention without any examination. Under this law 235 patents were issued in the seven years the Government remained in Philadelphia, including one for Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin. Altogether in the first ten years of our Government, 290 patents were granted.

It is interesting to compare this number with the 1000 or so patents now granted each Tuesday.

The work of granting patents was carried out entirely by one clerk in the State Department until after the Government moved to Washington in 1800. In 1802, William Thornton, one of the architects of the Capitol, was appointed Superintendent of the Patent Office, which moved into a separate building that year. In 1810 Blodgett's Hotel, on E Street between 7th and 8th, in Washington, was purchased by the Government for the Patent Office and it was the first separate building owned by any Government bureau. That building with all of the Patent Office records was destroyed by fire in 1836, and Congress immediately appropriated from the accumulated patent funds money to begin the construction of the beautiful building at present occupied by the Patent Office. This building, first occupied in 1840, was several times

enlarged and finally completed in 1867. It is probably the finest example of classical architecture in an office building in America.

In 1836, the year of the Patent Office fire, Congress revised the patent laws and returned to the examination system, which still remains the foundation of the American patent system and which has been copied by most of the important industrial European countries, as well as Japan. It is generally admitted that our liberal patent laws have done much to bring about the present wonderful condition in which we live. The present is indeed an age of invention.

At the time of the fire in 1836 there were about 7000 models in the Patent Office, all of which were destroyed. The deposit of models has not been required since 1880, but up to that time upwards of 155,000 had been assembled. There was no room available to display them and under a recent act of Congress the models are now being disposed of, saveing those which are of historical value.

The first 46 years of the patent system up to 1836 produced about 10,000 patents; in the next 17 years to 1853, 10,000 more were granted, which is about the number we now grant every three months. In 1840, when we came into the present building, only 765 applications for patents were filed and 458 patents issued. Last year we received over 103,000 applications for patents and granted over 45,000 patents, as many as had been granted in our whole history up to 1864. The work which in 1800 was carried on by a single clerk in the State Department, had grown to five employees in 1840. Now, we have in the Patent Office 1268 employees, including 642 technically educated trained examiners who devote their time to examining applications for patent. The total issue of patents, which in 1836 amounted to about 10,000, has grown to such an extent that the last patent issued today was numbered 1,554,186.

In recognition of the interest of the commercial world in patents, the Patent Office was put into the Department

of Commerce under Secretary Hoover, by executive order in April, 1925.

The Patent Office has received over 7 and a half million dollars more than it has spent.

We keep on hand printed copies of all patents issued, so that we constantly have on hand about 50,000,000 printed patents. They occupy about 20 miles of shelf space. All of these are arranged conveniently for ready access, and last year we sold to the public and furnished to various institutions over 5 million printed copies of patents.

In addition to its patent work, the Patent Office was given the duty in 1870 by Congress of registering trade marks. That year we registered only 121 trade marks. At the present time we are registering trade marks at the rate of about 250 each week. The last trade mark registered today was numbered 203,463.

Patents and Trade Marks are all carefully classified so that when you visit the United States Patent Office you can see copies of all patents on any device in which you are interested, be it an electric motor, a tooth brush, or a golf club.

I am glad to have had an opportunity to tell you how the Patent Office has grown with the development of the country and I hope that in the near future I may take you on a tour through the various divisions of the Patent Office.

Note The foregoing article was broadcasted by Mr. Fenning from Station WRC on September 15, 1925.

SUBSTITUTION OF MATERIAL.

Part one: Inventive.

Part two: Non-inventive.

By EMERSON STRINGHAM and MANUEL C. ROSA.

Part one: Inventive.

The question of when there is patentable invention in substituting a different material in place of that which has previously been used is nearly as old as or older than the American patent system. The present contribution is not offered as a definitive marking out of the field, but as a sketch of the approximate boundaries heretofore indicated by various tribunals, and a suggestion of one or two places where those boundaries may possibly be made more definite.

Writing in 1813, Thomas Jefferson, sometimes called the father of the American patent system, stated a policy of refusing patents for this kind of substitution, instancing wrought iron in place of cast iron for plowshares, iron instead of horn or ivory for combs, leather instead of hemp or iron in a band, "Memorial to Congress Oliver Evans Patent," p. 14, (Library of Congress: T S 2135, U 6 M S). With limitations this policy still prevails, but it has undergone modification during the intervening century. One of the earliest modifications appears in an opinion of the Attorney-General, dated June 4, 1827, and recommending the allowance of a patent for glass furniture, because the question of patentability seemed doubtful. 2 Op. Atty. Gen. 52. The decisions that have made the modifications are discussed at length in the first part of this paper; the second part of the paper consists of an analysis generally of the reasoning of cases following the Jeffersonian rule, after which the cases are presented in tabular form.

Some of the cases cited in the digest under this topic have little if any relevancy, but most of such cases are