All of the features specified in a claim should be described in the specification. If during the prosecution of a case, the claims are amended by inserting limitations, amend the specification, if necessary, by incorporating therein terminology or phraseology used in the amended claims.

After references are cited, compare the references and the applicant's structure to discover the general and specific differences

The primary object of such a comparison should be to insure that all claims of every nature to which the inventor is possibly entitled are presented. The solicitor's duty is not performed until he has given the Office an opportunity to pass on all phases of the invention. Whether the claims should be insisted upon, if rejected, is another matter, and should not ordinarily determine

as to the presentation of the claims. Nor does it usually matter that the Office may require division if certain claims are presented.

When preparing an amendment which it is supposed will lead to formal allowance of the application, the application should be reviewed to determine whether a supplemental oath is needed, whether the statement of objects corresponds with the claims then standing in the case, and whether any portion of the description and drawings should be canceled in view of the relinquishment of claims to any features. If the application is not reviewed before allowance as above suggested, it should be reviewed as soon as notice of allowance is received, and any necessary amendment should be made under Rule 78.

Inasmuch as a certain percentage of patents are issued with errors traceable to the Government printer or the clerks in the examining divisions, in important cases it is advisable, before paying the final fee, to make sure that the clerk has correctly entered all amendments. The Office copy of the application may be sent to a Washington associate for comparison with the Patent Office file. All patents should be compared with the application files, and errors of any consequence corrected by means of a certificate of correction or by reissue.

MUNITIONS PATENT BOARD SERVING TWO

DEPARTMENTS.

(Reprinted from The Official U. S. Bulletin of October 19, 1918.)

The War Department authorizes the following:

For the purpose of coördinating the policies of the War Department and the Navy Department in patent matters, the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy have established the Munitions Patent Board. The membership of this board consists of the Hon. Thomas Ewing, who has been jointly selected by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy; Max Thelen, the representative of the War Department, and Pickens Neagle, representing the Navy Department.

The Munitions Patent Board has been formed to consider clauses in contracts of the respective departments dealing with patents; questions as to the validity or infringement of patents and the patentability of inventions; questions as to the amount of compensation to be paid for patents or for the use of patents; and all other miscellaneous questions as to patents which may arise in the two departments interested. The board is empowered to recommend, from time to time, to the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy suitable action to be taken or policies to be adopted in regard to all patent matters which are brought before it for consideration. The action of the board in matters which come before it so far as they apply to the War Department is subject to the final approval of the Secretary of War, and in matters for the Navy is subject to the final approval of the Secretary of the Navy.

DECEPTIVE CHEMICAL PATENTS.

To the Editor:

New York, October 22d, 1918.

A quotation from a book called "Science and the Nation" published by the Cambridge University Press, of 1917, in reference to German patents, may be of timely and perhaps of future interest to your readers. quotation is found on pages 17 and 18 of the book.

The

The Bayer Company, like all the other German fine chemical firms, holds many thousands of carefully drawn up patents; these constitute a valuable asset with which to fight competitors and to conceal actual methods of working. For it must be understood that many of these patents are bogus, that is to say, contain deliberate misstatements for the purpose of misleading enquiring minds as to the manner in which imporant pro- . ducts are manufactured by the firm. In fact, some German patents are drawn up for the purpose of discouraging investigation by more practical methods; thus, anyone who attempted to repeat the method for manufacturing a dye-stuff protected Salzmann and Kruger in the German Patent No. 12,096 would be pretty certain to kill himself during the operation. Commercial organizations which have reached such a stage of development as can produce adornments like the above will not suffer much from the kind of competition which we are at present preparing to offer.

This is not an isolated complaint of this kind as the newspapers in the United States have from time to time contained references to the effect that the working formulae given in many of the United States chemical patents taken out by Germans were unworkable. If this is true of a large number of German chemical patents where issued in the United States, England, or elsewhere, would it not tend to weaken the force of such patents either as references or anticipations when cited against United States applications or against United States patents? We should be glad to know how general complaints of this kind have been.

Yours very truly,

MOCK & BLUM.

RULES 28 AND 29.

By CHAS. E. TULLAR, Examiner.

(Delivered before the fourth assistant examiners.)

RULE 28.

Joint inventors are entitled to a joint patent; neither of them can obtain a patent for an invention jointly invented by them independent inventors of distinct and independent improvements in the same machine can not obtain a joint patent for their separate inventions. The fact that one person furnishes the capital and another makes the invention does not entitle them to make an application as joint inventors; but in such case they may become joint patentees, upon the conditions prescribed in Rule 26.

Only an original inventor is protected under the Constitution (Art. 1, Sec. 8). A patent must be founded upon the right of the inventor and no concession on the part of the original inventor can make any one else an inventor. (Tyler v. Kelch, 98 O. G., 1282; 1902 C. D., 506, App. D. C.) Section 4888 of the Revised Statutes requires the application to be made by the personality of the source of the inventive act, whether that personality reside in one or several individuals. A patent being a contract and mutual assent to its terms being of the essence of a contract, in the absence of such assent on the part of all joint inventors no valid patent can be issued. An application signed by one of the inventors alleging that he and another are joint inventors will therefore not be accepted even for the purpose of an interference with a patent alleged to have been improperly obtained by the other on his application as a sole inventor. (Ex parte Schaeffer 76 O. G., 1118; 1896 C. D., 30; in re Crane, 106 O. G., 999; 1903 C. D., 322.)

There is one case holding that a patent granted to the assignee of two joint applicants therefor as joint inventors is valid although one was a sole inventor. (De Laski & Thropp C. W. T. Co. v. Wm. R. Thropp & Sons Co., 218 Fed., 458, D. C. N. J.) The basis of the holding is that Section 4895 of the Revised Statutes permits the granting of a patent to the assignee of "the inventor or dis