permits (1) a joint inventor, without receiving any remuneration therefor, to assign his interest in a patent application or in a patent, or to give a license, ⚫ without incurring any obligation to his co-owners by reason of having made such assignment or granted such license; and (2) permits the Government or other assignee or licensee to issue royalty-free licenses or sublicenses in the public interest under such application or patent without incurring any obligation to the co-owners. It is suggested that this result might be obtained and at the same time provide for an accounting of remuneration actually received, by revising the last clause of section 212 to read somewhat as follows: 66* * * and any owner may grant licenses or assign his interest, or any part thereof, without the consent of the other owners, provided that he must account to them for their proportionate shares in the event he receives any remuneration therefor." This recommendation is substantially in accord with the views of a committee appointed by the Chairman of the Government Patents Board to consider this question. 2. Section 221: "Issue of patents without fees to Government employees".This provision derives from the "no-fee" act of March 3, 1883, as amended (35 U. S. C. § 45), which authorizes the Commissioner of Patents to waive the fee for inventions by Federal employees if they are liable to be used in the public interest and if the employee gives the Government a license to use the invention. There are a few changes in language, such as the requirement of a certification that the invention is used or likely to be used "by or for the Government," rather than used "in the public interest" as in the present law. In addition to inventions owned by employees, there are inventions conceived by our employees under circumstances where the Government is entitled to the assignment of all rights in the invention or of certain lesser rights therein. Moreover, as indicated earlier in this report, there are some inventions made by individuals who are not Federal employees, under agreements whereby the Government is entitled to an assignment of some or all rights in the invention because it resulted from research work financed in whole or in part from public funds. The research activities of the Public Health Service, whether undertaken directly by employees or indirectly through grant-supported research, at times result in valuable inventions in the nature of chemical or biological discoveries which may be of substantial value for use in the field of public health and medicine. These inventions might in some cases be highly useful in the public interest, even if not manufactured or used directly by or for the Government. The Public Health Service can of course arrange for filing patent applications on nonemployee inventions and pay the usual Patent Office fees out of appropriated funds which may be available for that purpose. However, this simply means the transfer of such funds back into the Federal Treasury, with an incidental administrative expense and possible delay in handling the paper work needed for a transfer of funds. It would therefore seem to be a logical clarification of section 221 if it were revised to conform to present practice by including expressly employee inventions assigned or to be assigned to the Government. It would be very desirable in that connection to retain the language of the existing statute ("in the public interest"), because the more restrictive requirement that the invention is likely to be used "by or for the Government" might operate to discourage the patenting of some inventions made with the use of public funds where it would be in the public interest to secure a patent. It would also seem to be logical and justifiable to extend the scope of section 221 to include cases where the invention is made by a person not technically a Federal employee, if it resulted from the expenditure of public funds and if the Government has rights in the invention (frequently, but not always, being entitled to the assignment of all domestic rights therein). It is believed that this limited extension of the section to cover certain nonemployee inventions resulting from publicly financed research might not involve any very large increase in the number of waivers by the Patent Office, as compared with those under the present statute. If believed to be desirable, the waiver could be made discretionary in accordance with rules to be formulated by the Commissioner. Suggested language to carry out this recommendation is enclosed for the committee's consideration. This agency has no objection to the enactment of the bill, but we recommend that it be modified as suggested above. The Bureau of the Budget advises that there is no objection to the submission of this report to your committee. Sincerely yours, JOHN L. THURSTON, SUGGESTED LANGUAGE FOR THE REVISION OF SECTION 221 The Commissioner may grant, subject to the provisions of this title, to any officer, enlisted man, or employee of the Government, except officers and employees of the Patent Office, or to any individual whose invention was made in connection with activities financed wholly or partially from Federal funds, a patent without the payment of fees, when the head of a department or agency, or a responsible official duly authorized in writing to act on his behalf,' certifies that the invention is used or likely to be used in the public interest, and further when either (1) such official also certifies that to the best of his information and belief the Government has been assigned or is entitled to the ownership of all rights in the invention or to a specified lesser interest therein, or (2) the applicant in his application states that the invention described therein may be manufactured and used by or for the Government for governmental purposes without the payment to him of any royalty thereon, which stipulation shall be included in the patent. Hon. JOSEPH R. BRYSON, NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR AERONAUTICS, Chairman, Subcommittee No. 3, Committee on the Judiciary, DEAR MR. BRYSON: Permit me, in the absence of Chairman Hunsaker, to reply to your letter of April 30, 1951, in which you requested an expression of the views of this committee concerning H. R. 3760, a bill entitled "To revise and codify the laws relating to patents and the Patent Office, and to enact into law title 35 of the United States Code entitled 'Patents'." The revision and codification of the existing patent laws is considered desirable and H. R. 3760 is regarded as a generally satisfactory means of accomplishing this end. The bill was discussed at the meeting of the Government Patents Board on May 14, 1951, and it was concluded that a further study should be made of the possible effects of the passage of the bill upon the rights of the Government to inventions made by Government employees. An interagency working committee was accordingly established by the Chairman of the Government Patents Board. This committee, which included the NACA representative on the Board, met on May 21, 1951. It was agreed that section 212 of H. R. 3760, as now written, if enacted into law, would complicate the acquisition by the Government of rights under patents granted jointly to two or more inventors not all of whom are Government employees. It was, therefore, agreed that recommendation should be made to revise the wording of section 212 to read substantially as follows: "In the absence of any agreement to the contrary, each of the joint owners of a patent may make, use, or sell the patented invention without the consent of and without accounting to the other owners, and any owner may grant licenses or assign his interest, or any part thereof, without the consent of the other owners provided he accounts to them for any material consideration received therefor." A satisfactory alternative to the revision suggested would be a return to the wording of section 212 of H. R. 9133 of the Eighty-first Congress. The NACA is in agreement with the foregoing recommendation and has no other comments to offer regarding H. R. 3760. Sincerely yours, J. W. CROWLEY, Associate Director for Research. 1 This phase is intended to make it clear that the head of an agency could authorize the execution of the necessary certificates by some other responsible official in the agency, such as, for example, by the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service. 2 The phrase "or to a specified lesser interest therein" is designed to cover cases where the Government is entitled to the ownership of something less than all rights in an invention, such as, for example, cases where the foreign rights are retained by the inventor, or where the Government is entitled only to the interest of one or more joint inventors, and not to the interest of all of the joint inventors. Mr. BRYSON. We now have the privilege of hearing Dr. S. B. Fracker of the Department of Agriculture. STATEMENT OF S. B. FRACKER, ASSISTANT TO RESEARCH ADMINISTRATOR, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Mr. FRACKER. My name is S. B. Fracker, assistant to the Research Administrator in the Department of Agriculture, and representative of the Department of Agriculture on the Government Patents Board. I am appearing in favor of the bill now under consideration by the committee with the suggestion of two changes in section 221 of the bill. The committee has been supplied with copies of a letter of June 12 from the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture on this subject. I wish merely to make a few brief informal comments. Section 221 of the bill constitutes a restatement of what is commonly known as the Non fee Act under which inventions by Government employees in the course of their duties or otherwise may be patented without the payment of patent fees. The original authorization to accomplish this purpose was passed on March 3, 1883, and has been continued with little change since that time. Under present law in accordance with the orginal statute, when a patent application is filed under the Nonfee Act by an employee of the Government for a patent on an invention resulting from his research, the head of the agency is required to certify that the invention is "in the public interest." The inventor is also required to give the Government shop rights. Section 221 of the bill before the committee changes the certification requirement so that Government inventions are exempt from the payment of fees, "when the inventions are to be used or likely to be used by the Government." I should like to comment on the difference in the meaning of these two phrases and the effect of the changes. The change in the language will undoubtedly be satisfactory with respect to military inventions where the Government is the principal user and in many cases is the only purchaser of the product or the device invented. The Department of Agriculture, however, was established for the purpose of the development and dissemination of knowledge and the type of research that is carried on in the Department is not research aimed toward the development of articles for the procurement by Government. The Government, in most cases, is not the principal user of the invention. Accordingly, the Department feels that the language in the present law, "in the public interest," is more satisfactory as a description of the type of inventions that come from Department of Agriculture research than the proposed change. I would like to illustrate the difference by mentioning a number of recent patents. For example, one issued on February 20, 1951, assigned to the Secretary of Agriculture covers a process for the glazing of fruit that is to be stored, transported, and sold in frozen packages. The fruit so glazed under this process remains separate. The individual pieces of the individual fruits do not cohere in a solid mass in the package as is now the case with frozen fruit available on the market. It can be. packed mechanically instead of by hand. The berries, cherries, or individual pieces of larger fruits are frozen hard and the glazing pro tects it so it is not injured in storage or transportation. No sirup is required to fill the interstices between the pieces of fruit. It is clear that an invention of this type is primarily directed, first, to the better utilization of horticultural crops, and, second, to the advantage of the consumer in having a more desirable product. It is probable that at some time in the future the Quartermaster Corps may have occasion to use some such products, but a description of the invention as being "in the public interest" is more applicable than to say that the product is "likely to be used by and for the Government." There is another type of invention to which this difference is also applicable. Some of the inventions, particularly in the Bureau of Agriculture and Industrial Chemistry and at the Forest Products Laboratory of the Department, involve products that are intermediate to further manufacturing processes, and are directed primarily to the utilization of farm and forest products without regard to the end uses that may later be developed. For example, a patent issued on February 27, 1951, provides certain methods for treating feathers to get them into a protein form. In this form the material may later be used by manufacturing companies for a wide variety of materials, including the development of fibers, bristles, and similar articles, or the development of protein feeds for poultry, or the manufacture of plastics, or many other different uses to which protein materials can be put. The invention is intended primarily to provide for the utilization of feathers when in surplus, and while the Government might at some time use some of the end products manufactured, the Government is not likely to engage in the treatment of feathers for this purpose. The committee is doubtless also familiar with the work of the Department in the development of certain medicinal products from agricultural products. One of these that has come into use is Rutin, now made largely from buckwheat. It is a product used in medicine to reduce the danger of bleeding, in the case of persons whose capillaries and other blood vessels have become fragile and brittle with a tendency to break under pressure or damage. There are several patents in regard to the method of manufacturing and purifying this product. These inventions are better described as "in the public interest," rather than as "to be used by and for the Government." As another illustration, a Department employee has applied for a public-service patent on a method of removing the last traces of fatty materials from starch. This is a process that is useful in many industrial fields in connection with any product in which defatted starch is of value. It is not likely to be employed by Government agencies, but it is in the interest of the use of agricultural products and in the interest of consumers. That is one suggestion we are making with respect to section 221 of H. R. 3760, that the language go back to the wording that was used in H. R. 9133 of the last Congress, namely, use the term “in the public interest" in place of the proposed change. In the Secretary's letter to the committee, there is an additional suggestion which does involve a change in the present law in case the committee wishes to consider it. This relates to the cooperative research of the Department. Under various statutes the Department of Agriculture carries on considerable research in cooperation with the agricultural experiment stations. It also engages in contract research with various contractors. Such research sometimes results in patentable inventions by persons who are carrying out all their investigations at the expense of the Government, but they are not Government employees. Under present law the Nonfee Act is available only for inventions. made by Government employees. Therefore, when there is an invention by a contractor or a cooperating agency working on a Government grant or an allotment or under a Government contract, it cannot now be patented under the Nonfee Act. In such cases either the Department pays the fee, or the rights, under the cooperative agreement, may be granted to the cooperator, depending on the equities in the particular case. In some cases possibly no application for patent is filed. In the case of inventions made wholly or partially at Government expense where a cooperating inventor assigns patent rights to the Government, or dedicates such rights to the public, the Department recommends that the inventor should not be required to pay the patent fees. The Secretary's letter to the committee suggests a modified language for this paragraph, section 221, providing for such authorization. I shall be glad to leave with the counsel of the committee for consideration as further illustrations of the type of patents referred to that are of general interest to the public a list of all of the patents that were granted to the Bureau of Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry, one of the Bureaus that carries on research of this type during the fiscal year 1950. The committee can note from this list the title of the patents, the nature of the Department inventions that come under this law. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. BRYSON. Would you like to have this letter from the Secretary included in the record? Mr. FRACKER. I would be glad to have it included in the record, if you will, sir. (The letter referred to follows:) DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Hon. JOSEPH R. BRYSON, Subcommittee No. 3, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives. DEAR MR. BRYSON: This is in response to your letter of April 30, 1951, requesting a report on H. R. 3760, a bill to revise and codify the laws relating to patents and the Patent Office, and to enact into law title 35 of the United States Code entitled "Patents." We have previously urged inclusion of a number of addiional items as outlined, for example, in our letter to you of June 1, 1950, commenting on the preliminary draft of the proposed revision and amendment of the patent laws. However, it appears that these proposed items are of controversial nature and may have been omitted from the bill for this reason. We believe the major portion of the bill advances the patent laws and should be enacted. Except for one item discussed in detail below, we do not oppose the bill and do not propose to press, at present, for several of the additional items referred to above. The Department is not, however, abandoning its contention that legislation along the lines we have previously urged should be adopted. The item of H. R. 3760 which is objectionable to the Department is found in section 221. According to this section, filing an application under the Nonfee Act would require certification by the head of a department or agency that the "inven |