Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

232

DRAFTSMAN'S SCREW-PIN.

fications at the Inrolment-office, without making any further discovery-until October last, when I waited upon Mr. Mordan, in a confidential manner. After exchanging several remarks about steelpens, I showed him a plan and model of my three-prong, or writing point (which I have still by me), and he asked me if I meant to allow all the three prongs to touch the paper when writing. I replied, certainly the third prong was to deposit the ink, when the two main prongs were extended wide, to form large letters, but in small writing it would seldom come in contact with the paper. All that has been said about capillary attraction, &c. I do not think applicable to this subject. Mr. Mordan then said that such a pen, a few months back, would have been worth 1,000l. I naturally desired to know why it had lost its value. He then told me of Mr. Gowland; what he had done; and that he had unfortunately allowed his invention to be published by Mr. Carstairs; and although a patent was now out of the question, he meant to make something of it if he could. He also showed me a pen with a piece punched out of the shank, and bent down the back, to form the third prong. Mr. Gowland's plan was a separate piece rivetted on. I pointed out to Mr. Mordan that my mode of making was different both from Mr. Gowland's and his, and that it could safely hold double the quantity of ink. I then left him, desiring him not to use my plan without my consent, saying I had still another point in store, which would appear in another way; and I have neither seen nor heard from Mr. Mordan since.

I believe Mr. Gowland has not benefitted much by his share in the invention; he told me that several pen-makers to whom he had shown the pen, pretended they had a similar thing. This, I believe, they had not; consequently it appears that Mr. Gowland was jockeyed into the act of publishing his invention, to his own loss and the benefit of others. Your obedient servant, J. DICKSON.

9 Charlotte-street, Blackfriars-road, June 27, 1836.

DRAFTSMAN'S SCREW-PIN. Sir,-Presuming that the simplicity of the following contrivance is no objection,

I have to beg a corner for it in your valuable Magazine.

I have often found, in using a drawing-board, when I had a sheet of paper laid on each side at the same time, and had occasion to draw on both before

taking either from it, that they became woolly (from being rubbed), and, consequently, unpleasant to work upon. I therefore adopted the following method of preventing this evil, and thus now use one board, where I otherwise should have been obliged to have two.

Near each corner of the board a small brass tube was fixed, with a screw tapped in it, so as to take a screw-pin, placed either above or below. One of these pins was fitted into each tube, and the head left rather rough, to take a better hold on the table on which the board might be placed when used.

The engraving, in which AB shows a section of part of the board, and a the pin screwed in its place, will supersede the necessity of a further description. If preferred, pins without being screwed, but fitting nicely, would do.

I remain, Sir,
Yours very obediently,

C. E. B., a Subscriber.

AMERICAN LAW OF PATENTS. Report of a Select Committee of Congress appointed to take into consideration the State and Condition of the Palent-Office, and the Laws relating to the issuing of Patents for New and Useful Inventions and Discoveries.

The promotion of the arts and the improvement of manufactures are the objects aimed at in granting patents for inventions. All civilised nations have provided in some form for the encouragement of inventive genius. England, from whom we derived, originally, most of our notions of national polity, and who has hitherto been considered the 66 queen of arts," is in no small degree indebted for the distinction to the liberality with which she has always rewarded genius

AMERICAN LAW OF PATENTS.

and science for their inventions and discoveries. Individual munificence and the patronage of wealthy associations, have there, as in France and Germany, done much to supply whatever was wanting in the liberality of the Government. But such patronage is necessarily partial in its operation. It is limited to particular objects, if not to particular individuals. There appears to be no better way of measuring out appropriate rewards for useful inventions than by a general law, to secure to all descriptions of persons, without discrimination, the exclusive use and sale, for a given period, of the thing invented. In this way they will generally derive a just and appropriate encouragement proportioned to the value of their respective inventions. It is not at this day to be doubted that the evil of the temporary monopoly is greatly overbalanced by the good the community ultimately derives from its toleration.

The granting of exclusive privileges was in England originally assumed as a preroga tive of the Crown, from which it derived a revenue. It was at first limited to the introduction of manufactures from other countries. Afterwards like privileges were granted for new inventions made within the realm. Like all other regal prerogatives, it was subject to abuse, and Parliament found it necessary to limit and restrain it. This was done by the famous statute of monopolies, passed in the reign of James I, which defined the king's prerogative in respect to the description of grants which might legally be made, and among them were patents for inventions and new manufactures. The very brief reservation of right in the Crown contained in that statute, and the judicial decisions in cases arising under the grants of privileges made pursuant to it, constituted the whole of the English law on the subject up to 1835, when a law was passed by Parliament giving the right to file a disclaimer in certain cases, and containing some other less material provisions.

It is from those judicial decisions that we have derived most of the principles on which our laws on the subject are founded, and which have entered into and influenced the judicial expositions given to them. But the decisions of our courts have been characterised by a more enlightened and liberal appli cation of equitable principles to cases of this description, in a just endeavour to sustain patents for meritorious inventions, instead of seeking to find, in the technicalities of law, a pretext for setting them aside.

Prior to the adoption of the federal constitution, the States, within their narrow limits, could give very little encouragement to in. ventors by grants of exclusive privileges; and up to that time the arts had made very

233

little progress on this side of the Atlantic. By the constitution of the United States that power was wisely vested in Congress.

The first act of Congress on the subject was passed in 1790. It authorised the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and the Attorney-General, or any two of them, on application, to grant patents for such new inventions and discoveries as they should deem " sufficiently useful and important."

Under that act the board so constituted exercised the power of refusing patents for want of novelty in the invention, or of suffi cient utility and importance. This act extended the same privilege to aliens as to citi. zens. In 1793, it was repealed, and nother act passed, authorising patents to citizens of the United States only, to be granted by the Secretary of State, subject to the revision of the Attorney-General. In 1809, the privilege to take out patents was extended to aliens who have resided two years in this country, and made oath of their intention of becoming citizens of the United States.

The act of 1793, which is still in force, gives, according to the practical construction it has received, no power to the Secretary to refuse a patent for want of either novelty or usefulness. The only inquiry is, whether the terms and forms pres ribed are complied with. The granting of patents, therefore, is but a ministerial duty. Every one who makes application is entitled to receive a patent by paying the duty required, and making his application and specification in conformity with the law. The necessary consequence is, that patents have, under the act of 1793, been daily granted, without regard to the question of novelty, or even utility in the ordinary sense; for it has been settled that the term useful, as used in this statute, is only in contradistinction to hurtful, injurious, or pernicious. This construction (that no right is conferred to refuse a patent) has been given to the law by the department charged with the duty of granting patents, not so much probably from any necessary and unavoidable import of the terms of it, as from a disinclination to exercise a power of so much importance, in cases where it is not clearly and distinctly granted. And it may be reasonably doubted whether it was the intention of Congress to confer such a power on the Secretary of State alone, since no provision is made for an appeal or other remedy for an incorrect decision adverse to the applicant. Besides, any person occupying that station might be supposed as little qualified by an acquaintance with the appropriate branches of science or of the arts, to decide such questions, as any other officer of the Government. And were he to undertake the task of such an examination as would be necessary to a decision in each case, he

234

AMERICAN LAW OF Patents.

would have little time for other official duties.

Under the act referred to, the Department of State has been going on for more than forty years, issuing patents on every application, without any examination into the merit or novelty of the invention. And the evils which necessarily result from the law as it now exists, must continue to increase and multiply daily, till Congress shall put a stop to them. Some of them are as follows:

1. A considerable portion of all the pa tents granted are worthless and void, as conflicting with, and infringing upon one another, or upon public rights not subject to patent privileges; arising either from a want of due attention to the specifications of claim, or from the ignorance of the patentees of the state of the arts and manufactures, and of the inventions made in other countries, or even in our own.

2. The country becomes flooded with patent monopolies, embarrassing to bona fide patentees, whose rights are thus invaded on all sides; and not less embarrassing to the community generally, in the use of even the most common machinery and long-known improvements in the arts and common manufactures of the country.

3. Out of this interference and collision of patents and privileges, a great number of lawsuits arise, which are daily increasing in an alarming degree, onerous to the courts, ruinous to the parties, and injurious to society.

4. It opens the door to frauds, which have already become extensive and serious. It is represented to the Committee that it is not uncommon for persons to copy patented machines in the model-room; and, having made some slight immaterial alterations, they apply in the next room for patents. There being no power given to refuse them, patents are issued of course.

Thus prepared,

they go forth on a retailing expedition, selling out their patent rights for States, counties, and townships, to those who have no means at hand of detecting the imposition, and who find, when it is too late, that they have purchased what the venders had no right to sell, and which they obtain thereby no right to use. This speculation in patent rights has become a regular business, and several hundred thousand dollars, it is estimated, are paid annually for void patents, many of which are thus fraudulently obtained.

In this collision and interference of patents, the original and meritorious inventor sees his invention, to the perfection of which he has devoted much time and expense, pirated from him, and he must forego the reward which the law was intended to secure to him in the exclusive right it grants; or he must

become involved in numerous and expensive lawsuits in distant and various sections of the country, to protect and confirm his rights. If he be wise, he will generally avoid the latter, and submit to the former alternative of injustice, to which the Government, as the law now is, makes itself accessary. The practice is scarcely less reprehensible, of taking out patents for what has been long in public use, and what every one has therefore a right to use. The patentee in such cases being armed with the apparent authority of the Government, having the sanction of its highest officers the seal of State, scours the country, and by threats of prosecution, compels those who are found using the thing patented, to pay the patent price or commutation tribute. This exaction, unjust and iniquitous as it is, is usually submitted to.

The extent of the evils resulting from the unrestrained and promiscuous grants of privileges, may be imagined, when it is considered that there are now issued, since this year commenced, at the rate of more than a thousand a year; a considerable portion of which are doubtless void for want of originality in the inventions patented, either in whole or in some of the parts claimed as new.

A necessary consequence is, that patents even for new and meritorious inventions are so much depreciated in general estimation, that they are of but little value to the patentees, and the object of the patent laws, that of promoting the arts by encouragement, is in a great measure defeated.

To prevent these evils in future is the first and most desirable object of a revision and alteration of the existing laws on this subject. The most obvious, if not the only means of affecting it, appears to be to establish a check upon the granting of patents, allowing them to issue only for such inventions as are in fact new and entitled, by the merit of originality and utility, to be pro tected by law. The difficulty encountered in effecting this, is in determining what that check shall be; in whom the power to judge of inventions before granting a patent can safely be reposed, and how its exercise can be regulated and guarded, to prevent injustice through mistake of judgment or otherwise, by which honest and meritorious inventors might suffer wrong.

It is obvious that the power must, in the first instance, be exercised by the department charged with this branch of the public service. But as it may not be thought proper to intrust its final exercise to the department, it is deemed advisable to provide for an occas sional tribunal to which an appeal may be taken. And as a further security against any possible injustice, it is thought proper to give the applicant, in certain cases, where there may be an adverse party to contest his

AMERICAN LAW OP PATENTS.

right, an opportunity to have the decision revised in a court of law.

The duty of examination and investigation necessary to a first decision at the Patentoffice, is an important one, and will call for the exercise and application of much scientific acquirement and knowledge of the existing state of the arts in all their branches, not only in our own, but in other countries. Such qualifications in the officers charged with the duty, will be the more necessary and desirable, because the information upon which a rejection is made at the office, will be available in the final decision. It becomes necessary, then, to give the Patent-office a new organization, and to secure to it a character altogether above a mere clerkship. The competency and efficiency of its officers should correspond with their responsibility, and with the nature and importance of the duties required of them. When the existing organization was adopted, the granting of patents was a matter of little importance, compared with what it now is. The arts in this country were but little understood, and but little cultivated. Agriculture and commerce constituted our principal business. We had few manufactures, except those of a domestic character, adapted to ordinary domestic wants. Our workshops were in Europe. Enterprise, in this country, ran in other channels. The war of 1812 gave it a new direction, and a new impulse, by creating an occasion for workshops of our own. Necessity became the mother of invention, and American manufactures sprang into existence as by enchantment. Their rise and progress may be dated from that period; and a more rapid advancement in the arts, and a more astonishing development of human ingenuity, have never taken place in any other age or country. This remark will appear far from extravagant to every one who will take the trouble to examine the subject. This awakening of dormant genius to a prac tical and active existence, next to the arousing of the political and patriotic energies of the Union, was one of the great results of that contest.-It opened to the country a new era. The nation entered upon a new existence. And since that period, American industry and enterprise, guided by American ingenuity and intellect, have achieved what would have taken Europe a century to accomplish. She has become all at once a manufacturing, as well as an agricultural and commercial nation. The useful arts have been cultivated with a success before unexampled, and have contributed, in no small degree, to the wonderful improvements which have spread themselves over our whole country. Who can predict the results, even in a few years, of that spirit of enterprise which pervades the Union, when,, aided by the

235

Genius of Invention, and propelled onward
by powers which she alone can bring into
exercise? The very elements are submissive
to her will, and all the endless combinations
of mechanism are subservient to her pur-
poses.
She participates in almost every
business and employment of man. Agricul-
ture itself might as well dispense with fertility
of soil, as with her aid in its cultivation.

The greatly increasing number of patents granted, affords some indication of the improvements which have been going on in the useful arts from year to year. The average number issued annually, from 1790 to 1800, was but 26; from 1800 to 1810, the average number was 91; from 1810 to 1820, it was 200; and, for the last ten years, the average number has been 535. During the last year,, there were issued 776; and there have been granted in the first quarter of the present year 274, being more in three months than were issued in the whole of the first period of ten years. In the 22 years preceding the war of 1812, the average annual number was 73. The first quarter of the present year indicates an aggregate for the year, of 1,096; the amount of the duties on which, will be upwards of 32,000 dollars. The whole number issued at the Patent-office, under the laws of the United States, up to the 31st of March last, is 9,731. This is more than double the number which have been issued either in England or France, during the same period. In England for ten years preceding 1830, the average number of patents granted in one year was 145.

Whoever imagines that, because so many inventions and so many improvements in machinery have been made, there remains little else to be discovered, has but a feeble conception of the infinitude and vastness of mechanical powers, or of the unlimited reach of science. Much as has been discovered, infinitely more remains unrevealed. The ingenuity of man is exploring a region without limits, and delving in a mine whose treasures are exhaustless. "Neither are all the mys teries of nature unfolded, nor the mind tired in the pursuit of them."

The first conceptions of ingenuity, like the first suggestions of science, are theories which require something of experiment and practical exemplification to perfect. Mechanical inventions are at first necessarily crude and incomplete. Time is required to develope their imperfections, and to make the improvements necessary to their adaption to practical uses. Inventors generally obtain patents before they venture upon those experiments which only can test their inventions. They are apprehensive of being forestalled in their discoveries, and see no other means of protecting themselves against piracy and fraud, than by securing patents at once

236

AMERICAN LAW OF PATENTS.

A remedy for this may be easily had in a provision authorising caveats to be filed in the office, giving security to the right of discovery for a time sufficient for making the necessary experiments, inquiries, and improvements.

Heretofore, aliens not resident in this country have not been admitted to the privileges of our patent laws. But, as American citizens are allowed to take out patents in England and in other countries, a principle of reciprocity would seem to require that foreigners should have similar privileges here, on paying a similar duty or amount of fees that is exacted of our citizens abroad. fees payable in England, on taking out a patent, amount to 585 dollars. If a patent be taken out for the three kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland, they amount to 1,680 dollars. In France they are 309 dollars; in Spain, 292 dollars; Austria, 208 dollars.

The

A power in the Commissioner of the Patent-office to reject applications for want of novelty in the invention, it is believed, will have a most beneficial and salutary effect in relieving meritorious inventors, and the community generally, from the serious evils growing out of the granting of patents for every thing indiscriminately, creating interfering claims, encouraging fraudulent speculators in patent rights, deluging the country with worthless monopolies, and laying the foundation for endless litigation.

In nineteen cases out of twenty, probably, the opinion of the Commissioner, accom. panied by the information on which his decision is founded, will be acquiesced in. When unsatisfactory, the rights of the applicant will find ample protection in an appeal to a board of examiners, selected for their particular knowledge of the subjectmatter of the invention in each case.

By this means, without danger to actual and honest inventors, the number of patents would be somewhat diminished. But there would be more confidence in those which should be granted, and as those which have been heretofore issued, should be daily expiring by their limitation, the community would begin to feel and realise the advantages of such a change. The present law waits till infringements and frauds are consummated-nay, it even aids them; and then it offers an inadequate remedy for the injury, by giving an action for damages. It ought, rather, by refusing to grant interfering patents, to render prosecutions unnecessary. Instead of sanetioning the wrong by granting the privilege to commit it, it should arrest injury and injustice at the threshold, and put an end to litigation before it begins.

Important and interesting as the Patent.

office is now considered, it is believed that, under such new organization as is contemplated by the bill presented herewith, it will contribute largely to the great interests of the country, and bear no small part in elevating our national character. American ingenuity has obtained much consideration on the other side of the Atlantic. Even the manufactures of England are not a little indebted to it for some of their most valuable improvements. Her woollen manufactures, especially, have, within a few years, undergone an entire change, by the adoption of American inventions, by which wool has been made as yielding and submissive to the power of machinery as any material whatever. Cotton machinery has also been greatly improved in the hands of our mechanics; and while England receives from us three-fourths of the cotton she uses in raw materials we furnish her also with some of the most valuable improvements in the means of manufacturing it. Indeed, what mechanism or manufacture has, for the last twenty years, been brought across the Atlantic, that has not, on being returned, borne the distinguished marks of the superior ingenuity of American mechanists? Formerly, we borrowed and copied much that was valuable from Europe. Now, Europe is borrowing and copying, with no little advantage, from us; and she must not be too much surprised if she shall soon find a formidable balance against her.

To carry fully into effect the objects which have been had in view, it will be necessary to provide larger and more commodious rooms for models, &c., than those now occupied for that purpose. They are insufficient for the models of machinery and other inventions now deposited there, and the number will be increasing several hundred, perhaps a thousand, every year. A great number, supposed to be about five hundred, from a want of room for them elsewhere, have been stowed away in a dark garret. Those which occupy the rooms designed for them, are crowded together in a manner unfavourable for exhibition or examination. In such a situation, it is impossible to give them any systematic or scientific arrangement. This disorder and confusion must necessarily be increased by the addition of those hereafter furnished, or they must be consigned to the garret, the common receptacle, where, instead of promoting a taste for, and facilitating the study of, the useful arts, they will only afford evidence of the improvidence of the Government. In addition to this, the present building is too much exposed to destruction by fire. The loss of records and drawings, and of the several thousands of interesting and valuable models now preserved there, would be, in a great degree, irrepara

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »