(4) Providing each of the proposed expert Supervisory Examiners, collectively constituting the Board of Examiners-inChief, with (say) three special assistants one expert in the literature and classification and questions of "division" within his field, one to advise as to all questions of "interference" arising within that field, and one to advise in regard to the delayed cases and miscellaneous legal problems of that field-as perhaps also as to the routine work and personnel therein, (the examining organization then becoming somewhat as in the diagram herewith), there might reasonably be expected to ensue notable reforms or advances in the following respects: (1) The dignity of the Commissionerships would be enhanced by a diminution of obligatory duties with no corresponding diminution of its powers-as no doubt also by a substantial increase in compensation, (2) The Commission being a permanent body, its policies would acquire a stability that appears impossible so long as each Commissioner may feel bound to reprove the party last in power by some marked deviation from former policy. (3) A growth in uniformity of practice would seem assured by (a) common supervision over related divisions constituting one Department, (b) enabling Board members to actually enforce, each within his own Department, Board decisions in subsequent analogous cases, (c) the participation by men who supervise within one field in the judicial work arising in other fields. (4) Adequate literature could with reasonable economy be placed within easy reach of each group of related divisions. (5) There should become possible the usual and well known advantages of "division of labor," such as (a) gain in economy of effort and reliability of results by the mere limitation of the field of special responsibility of each, (b) gain in interest, by encouragement of specialization, (6) By a basing of the division of labor, in an organization dealing with mixed questions of fact and law, upon differences in the sorts of engineering or practical knowledge involved, a new and wholesome emphasis would seem to be placed upon underlying scientific and technical problems, as distinguished from mere technicalities of procedure. (It may be urged that for every day's special training upon legal considerations necessary to a correct determination of a motion for, say, the dissolution of some chemical or electrical interference, a year's training along chemical or electrical lines might be appropriate; and that this fact challenges the economy and expediency of an assignment of, for example, all questions of declaration to one law examiner and all questions of dissolution to another.) INTERFERENCE ASSISTANTS. -LAW ASSISTANTS. CLASSIFICATION AND LITERATURE ASSIGNED TO THE RESPECTIVE EXAMINING DIVISIONS (7) The existence of well-paid positions of some distinction and responsibility and attainable on a merit basis would encourage able men to stay in the service. (8) If the Supervisors constituting the Board were sufficiently numerous to permit actual acquaintance by each supervisor with the work of all subordinates in his Department, promotions could be based upon either the quantity and quality of work done, or upon tests of scientific or practical information relating to a new position desired, rather than, as at present, upon the mastery of comparatively uncertain, arbitrary, unusual or unimportant technicalities of law, or of a fluctuating practice, for the ascertainment of which law and practice no suitable facilities have been provided. (9) Classification lines could be more easily maintained (if once established) in proportion as there would be some consistent and visible embodiment of a classification plan. (10) Experiments in method could be tried out within one department, without the risk of a general catastrophe. Commissioner Ewing long since suggested that in the case of process applications the requirements of the Office as to preliminary showing of operativeness might well be higher than is necessary in mechanical cases. (11) If the respective Commissioners could be appointed not only for overlapping periods of (say) eight years each, but also with such reference to their special qualifications that one of them would always be skilled in (say) matters of interference, one in general equity practice and patent litigation, one in classification and general scientific literature, and one perhaps in his knowledge of the personnel of the corps and the field for its replenishment-all alike being keen to both the economic and the scientific bearings of the service -it would apparently become possible not only to introduce new threads of coordination thruout the entire system, and to provide to qualified men of proper ambition a more ample and stimulating menu of special opportunities for rare and genuine public service, but possible also in a relatively large number of cases (and perhaps most notably in matters relating to the prompt and just determination of interferences) to substitute for the uncertain action of multiplied appeals the direct and final action of enlightened authority. (12) The Gazette could be published in sections corresponding to the respective Departments, and many patrons could thus be satisfied by a (more economical) subscription to a specified part. The present proposal will be found to be essentially a revival and elaboration of certain conceptions advanced by Commissioner Leggett as early as 1872, and at that time supported, although without effect, by both Secretary Delano and President Grant. (Report of President's Commission, p. 238.) It bears similarity also to those separate recommendations of the President's Commission which favor (although as independent proposi tions) (1) the regrouping of the corps (p. 65) and (2) the appointment of "seven supervisory examiners" as personal aids to the Commissioner of Patents (p. 13). Having tackled a problem before which his betters hesitate, the present writer would beg tolerance in a specific opposition to one proposal of the last-named body, to wit, the proposal that the Supervisory Examiners should have neither authority nor appellate jurisdiction. He would advocate clothing them with both; increasing their number accordingly, although providing (as in the plan of Commissioner Leggett) that no man be relied upon to pass a reviewing judgment upon his own prior acts. As to supporting sentiment already known to exist relative to the proposed strengthening of the Board, the present suggestions, altho widely advocated, suffer the disadvantage of hardly having become the subject of general discussion. One official high in authority-for whom the present writer must testify his very high respect-has suggested that he did not know as it would be of any advantage "to have a lot of highbrow profes sors around"; and it may no doubt be confidently as serted that in practical grasp the "scrubs"-if such they are-who are now "on the job" need fear nothing from a comparison, in point of general information, with any "thoroughbreds" that could be imported. It is the posi tion of the Board, with reference to the permanence of its standards, its means of information, and the enforcement of its views, that is not strong; and the normal field for replenishment of the Board will no doubt presently again be the subordinate corps. Comment has also been made that, under party rule, even the most urgent of calls for highbrows may sometimes result in an incursion of low-brows; but this is perhaps a slander upon democracy, or else a mere general defense of the status quo. A more serious objection is no doubt the actual, practical difficulty of the problem of suitable subdivision, in that the advantageous grouping of divisions does seem to imply a prior solution of some of the most difficult questions of classification. Surely it would be superfluous to remark, in closing, that, so far as known, no one from the Office would ad vocate anything like an interposition on the part of a National Research Council Committee, either momentarily or as a continuing collateral authority, in the purely administrative affairs of the Office. In so far as the underlying and primary purpose of the Office is educational, it is however, urged that any disposition to regard the classification of patents as a purely internal problem, or a problem whose solution must conform to the views of attorneys interested in the multiplication of grants (or to the views of those schoolboys upon whose searches, in patent matters, some attorneys seem to rely) is to be deprecated; and is to be corrected, if it can be corrected, only by those who can contribute not only information but a great deal of patient personal attention to its solution. The present Examiner of Classification is remembered to have invited the attention of the National Research Council to the problems of reclassification. Assistant Commissioner Clay is among those who have still more recently emphasized the view that, as to this particular problem, the scientists upon the present Committee or within its reach undoubtedly can, whenever pressure of other duties will permit, give direct assistance of the highest value. And the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency found (p. 65) that an effective regrouping of the examining corps must await the "initial completion of the entire plan of classification.". Patent classification is then a standing riddle whose solution seems prerequisite to a great number of other reforms, among which the improvement of the Office organization holds a prominent place. Reclassification is, moreover, a work for which the conditions of the Office are peculiarly unfavorable. That it is a problem of real inherent difficulty will further appear from the paper in this issue by Mr. Geo. A. Lovett, whose responsibility in the Classification Division has been next to that of its chief. Having participated for years (and with results the most meager) in this particular work, the present writer feels free to estimate that, under Office conditions. of equipment, atmosphere and interruption, average efficiency in reclassification work has not risen and does not rise above perhaps five per cent. of what it might well be under reasonably favorable conditions. |