the greatest industrial nation in the world. Such is a splendid field of endeavor and it is earnestly to be hoped that those who are seriously interested in patent matters whether in the Office or out will never allow the Journal to lag for want of interest in what it is striving to do.

That there is nothing new under the Sun is evident even in the Patent Office. This statement is not intended to reflect on the validity of the nearly a thousand patents that are issued every week but is used in connection with criticisms for the betterment of the Patent Office. One might say that all possible criticisms have been made and no one is entitled to set forth another as original and

new.

It is the purpose of this comment to rehearse an old one, namely the crowding of the members of the examining corps. That the examining of patent applications requires concentration goes almost without saying. Even a simple device and a short claim requires something more than the function of the spinal cord. But imagine differentiating forty-seven fifteen line claims on an automatic jail locking device in a room with five other examiners and a probable attorney or two thrown in.

The inevitable effect of this proximity is an inducing of discussions on a variety of subjects. Such distractions added to other unavoidable ones do not further the proper differentiation of the aforesaid forty-seven claims.

Attorneys may quite unconsciously absorb the attention of the entire room. When one seeks to patent an invention for the disclosure of which the industrial world has been holding its breath a display of enthusiasm is perhaps pardonable.

Our observation is that it is earnestly to be hoped that in the proposed Commerce Building ample space and proper isolation for examiners will be provided.

(Editorial from Eng. News-Record June 24, 1926)

HOW PRECEDENT IS BUILT UP

Patent validity, particularly where structural patents are concerned, is built up largely on the precedent of acceptance by earlier so-called infringers. The technique of the patentee has been fairly well established First, of course, he has to get a patent and then to have it upheld in the lower courts. This is quite simple for up till quite recently at least the Patent Office has been unable to distinguish between invention and design in a static structure and lawyers both on and off the bench have been equally dense. Armed by the law, then, the patentee seeks first a few amenable infringers, who to avoid difficulty and to save money, admit infringement and pay nominal damages. The patent thus becomes well estabished, the record of admitted infringement impressive and the chance remote of there arising an accused infringer bold enough to start anew the fight against the grant of a government monopoly to what. to all engineers familiar with the processes of design, is merely the exercise of normal engineering thought. The system by which such patents are promoted is pernicious but difficult to combat, because the individual as a rule finds it cheaper and easier to surrender than to fight. A peculiarly flagrant case has just come to hand: A public commission, against the advice of its engineers has just paid over a large royalty, because the individual members of the board had been led to believe by certain legal decisions that they were personally responsible for any damages awarded a contesting patentee after a successful infringement suit. The patentee now has this successful claim to wave before any other public body it chooses to intimidate and will continue to have it until someone has courage enough to fight and perhaps luck enough, patent courts being what they are, to win a suit based not on superficial legalities but on the obvious engineering fundamentals involved in this particular patent.

PRIMARY EXAMINER M. E. WEAVER.

Maurice E. Weaver, a native of Washington, D. C. received his primary education in the graded school and the high school. He was graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the course in Electrical Engineering and receiving the degree of Bachelor of Science. He later studied law and is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia and the D. C. Court of Appeals.

For about two years after graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he was employed in the testing department of the American Turbine Engine Company, as a mechanical engineer, at Brooklyn, New York.

In February 1908, Mr. Weaver entered the Patent Office where serving in Divisions 18, 28, 32, 34, 42, and 48 and being promoted through the several grades he was on March 6, 1926 appointed a Primary Examiner to take charge of Div. 38. After a short period of service in that division he was transferred to Div. 37.

PRIMARY EXAMINER FRED M. TRYON RETIRES.

More than half a century ago Examiner Fred M. Tryon came to Washington and entered the service of the Government as a clerk in the Treasury Department, and while thus employed he studied law in the Law School of Columbian College, now George Washington University. He chose as his subject for his graduation thesis, The Patent System of the United States, for which he was awarded first prize-fifty dollars in gold. He thus evinced early in life an interest in our American patent system. It is not surprising, therefore, that he early secured a transfer from the Treasury Department to the United States Patent Office where he became a Principal Examiner as a result of promotion examinations.

Mr. Tryon brought to his duties not only a love for his work and a knowledge of the U. S. patent laws, but he brought that rare attribute--a judicial temperament, the ability to weigh the facts and to render a decision in conformity with the law, and with the rules of the Patent Office, wholly free from bias. Such a judicial temperament is always engaged in an honest effort to hold the scales, as between the rights of the inventor and the rights of the public, absolutely level.

The writer well remembers an incident that occurred many years ago when Senator Platt of New York was quite influential in American politics. A constituent of his came to see Mr. Tryon about an application he had pending and after going over the application, and Mr. Tryon expressing his opinion that there was nothing patentable in his claim, the gentleman threatened to bring his Senator to the Patent Office to help him in his application. This aroused Mr. Tryon's resentment and turning to the applicant he said, "I don't have the honor to know Senator Platt personally but neither Senator Platt nor any one else can influence me in passing on an applicant's claim submitted for my determination and it would he a waste of his time to try unless he knows more about this case than I do."

Like any man of conspicuous ability, Mr. Tryon, while tenacious of his own views, has always been recognized as a man of great modesty and disinclined to push himself, being perfectly satisfied that his reputation as an examiner should rest upon the character of his work.

After spending his life in the service of the Government, more than 47 years of which have been spent in the Patent Office, Mr. Tryon voluntarily retired on the 15th of July, taking with him not alone the respect of the practitioners before the office and his fellow workers, but the affectionate regard of all those who have come in intinate contact with him. It is the earnest wish of his coworkers that he may live many years and enjoy his wellmerited and well-earned rest.

Mr. Tryon is one of the landmarks of the Patent Office. He has seen it develop and expand from the days when it occupied the Patent Office building together with the Secretary of Interior's Office, the land Office, and the Indian Office, to its present condition where it occupies the entire Patent Office building and a large portion of the Old Post Office building.

It is our belief that the American Patent System has done more for the development of this great Country of ours than any other one thing connected with it. It has stimulated American ingenuity and inventive ability into the creation of a vast number of devices and processes that have contributed and are contributing in untold measure to the comfort, health and pleasure. not only of the people of the United States, but of the entire world; and it can but be a matter of pride to Mr. Tryon that he has been a factor, and an important factor, in the administration of this great system and in the accomplishment of these great results. It is a sound prin iple that the greatest happiness achieved in this world is through the service of others. Mr. Tryon in his long service of the Government in the Patent Office has in reality been serving his fellow citizens and his fellowmen and we feel assured that this service, efficiently and untiringly rendered, will bring to him that happiness which comes to all of those who serve. Such is the wish of his fellow workers in the office and out.

JAMES T. NEWTON.

HONOR TO THE COMMISSIONER.

At the commencement exercises of the National University, this city, held in Memorial Continental Hall, June 12, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred by the Chancellor, Charles F. Carusi, upon Commissioner of Patents, Thomas E. Robertson, Fred T. Dubois, formerly U. S. Senator from Idaho, and Justice