from the Interior Department and instead of being conducted by a Commissioner and two Assistant Commissioners, that it should be administered by a Commission of three and that their terms of office should be about six years, with one expiring every two years and that they should be subject to reappointment. They should be paid a salary of $7500 each. The reason for the salary is that the Office may be able to obtain and retain the services of men with high qualifications and adequate experience. By having their terms expire at intervals of two years, it would prevent any one new man from coming into the Office and making radical changes in the procedure before he became experienced in the detailed practice of the Office. In other words, changes in the Office procedure would be made only as the result of experience and the possibility of one man overturning the existing practice and demoralizing the same would be largely eliminated. The next and fundamental need is an increase in the number of examiners and the salary schedule to bring the neglected matter of personnel and pay abreast of modern demands for men of their training and profession. We should have a Corps of at least fifty primary examiners at a salary of $4000 each, and 450 assistant examiners consisting of first assistant examiners at a salary of $3500; second assistant examiners at a salary of $3000 each; third assistant examiners at a salary of $2500 each; and fourth assistant examiners at a salary of $2000 each. Provision should be made to promote fourth assistants if considered properly qualified by the Commission after service of three years; third assistants should be promoted after service in their grade of four years; and second assistants after service in their grade of five years. This plan of advancement would put before men who enter the service what they can absolutely depend on if they are diligent, faithful and competent and above all it would produce a body of experienced examiners which is the thing desired. It would provide for the advancement of men as they become experienced instead of having to wait for some one to die or resign to give them the compensation for which they are qualified. If a man is not qualified after twelve years of experience to become a first assistant examiner it seems safe to say that he never will be qualified. Some one may say what is the use of proposing such changes when it seems that Congress will not grant them. I will answer by saying that you do not know what Congress will do if the case is properly presented to them. Besides, it is my purpose to set down here what I consider necessary and adequate to produce results needed rather than to state how much I think Congress would grant. It is my belief that Congress does not view this matter in the proper light. The problem from the public standpoint is to provide a salary schedule which will keep men whom the Government is training in its service and get the benefit of their training and experience instead of wasting it or dissipating it to the benefit of private business. I believe that nothing short of the salary schedule here proposed will hold the men in the service. If the Government is going to try to remedy this matter it might as well try something that is not foredoomed to failure. The theory that public positions and the salaries therefor are to be doled out as a charity to deserving appointees is a false one, although it seems to be entertained by a high percentage of people both in and out of public life. The pay of the position should be what will procure efficient public service and the question of charity and pauperism should be relegated to its proper sphere. Business men and organizations do not expect to get efficient men of the training, qualifications and responsibilities required of Patent Office examiners for any less pay than is named in this schedule and the Government cannot hope to do so and maintain the integrity and dignity of our patent system. In the early history of the patent system the salary of the officials corresponding to the primary examiner compared favorably with the salaries of federal district judges and even members of Congress. In 1836 when the examination system relating to patents went into effect, the relative salaries were Members of Congress District Judges "Examining Clerk" Patent Office .$8.00 per day of attendance $1000 to $1800 per year ..$1500 per year In 1870 when the office of primary examiner was es tablished the respective salaries were Members of Congress District Judges Primary Examiners $5000 per year 3500 66 The questions passed upon by the district judges and primary examiners are quite comparable and the present difference in their salaries makes clear the fact that the compensation of the one has kept pace with the growth in importance and complexity of the duties of his position, while the other is held at substantially the same salary notwithstanding his duties have similarly grown in importance and responsibility. REDUCTION OF NUMBER OF PENDING CASES. In conformity with the policy of the Office to hasten the prosecution of applications, a further and encouraging reduction of the total number of pending cases was recorded. On December 31, 1914, the total number pending, not including those in issue or forfeited, was 109,846. On December 31, 1918, this number had been reduced to 92,156. GENERAL DISCUSSION OF THE SUBJECT OF DIVISION-RULE 41. BY C. H. PIERCE, Law Examiner. The Courts in considering the question of joinder of two or more inventions in one patent have been much more liberal in upholding joinder than has the Office in permitting it. The question early came before them in Barrett & Hall, 1 Mason, Moody & Fiske, 2 Mason, and other cases reviewed by Story, J., in Wyeth vs. Stone, 1 Story-273. Wyeth's patent covered two machines, a cutter and a saw, successively used in cutting ice, the one following and completing the work of the other. Reviewing the attitude of the courts in previous cases Judge Story said: I agree that under the general patent acts, if two machines are patented, which are wholly independent of each other, and distinct inventions for unconnected objects, that the objection will lie in full force, and be fatal. The same rule would apply to a patent for several distinct improvements upon different machines having no common object or connected operation. In the case on trial, however, he says: Construing then the present patent to be a patent for each machine as a distinct and independent invention but for the same common purpose and auxiliary to the same common end, I do not perceive any just foundation for the objection made to it. If one patent may be taken for different and distinct improvements made in a single machine, which cannot well be doubted or denied, how is the case distinguishable from the present? Here are two machines, each of which is or may be justly auxiliary to produce the same general result, and each is applied to the same common purpose. Why then may not each be deemed a part or improvement of the same invention? Suppose the patentee had invented two distinct and different machines, each of which would accomplish the same end, why may he not unite both in one patent, and say, I deem each equally useful and equally new, but, under certain circumstances the one may, in a given case be preferable to the other? There is a claim in the Patent Acts which requires that the inventor, in his specification or description of his invention, should "fully explain the principle and the several modes in which he has contemplated the application of that principle or character by which it may be distinguished from other inventions." Now this would seem clearly to show that he might lawfully unite in one patent all the modes, in which he contemplated the application of his invention, and all the different forms of machinery, or modifications of machinery, by which or to which it might be applied and if each were new, there would seem to be no just objection to his patent reaching them all. A fortiori this rule would seem to be applicable where each of the machines is but an improvement or invention conducing to the accomplishment of one and the same general end. The decision also discusses the meaning of "the thing paténted" as it occurred in the statute. This decision is quoted to show that at a very early time the courts took a very liberal view of the privilege of joinder of inventions when directed to a common purpose and auxiliary to a common end. The statements as to the joinder of the various modifications or species of an invention are remindful of the complaint in the case of Benjamin vs. Dale, 158 F. R., 617, against the modern development of the Patent Office practice in regard to specific improvements. In Hogg vs. Emerson (6 Howard) it is said that, There seems to have been no good reason at first, unless it be a fiscal one on the part of the Government when issuing patents, why more than one in favor of the same inventor should not be embraced in one instrument, like more than one tract of land in one deed, or patent for land. (Phillips on Patents, 217.) But to obtain more revenue, the public officers have generally declined to issue letters for more than one patent described in them. (Renonard, 293; Phillips on Patents, 218.) The courts have been disposed to acquiesce in the practice as conducive to clearness and certainty. And if letters issue inadvertently otherwise, to hold them, as a general rule, null. But it is a well established exception that patents may be united, if two or more, included in one set of letters, relate to a like subject or are in their nature or operation coupled together. (Authorities cited.) Those here are of that character, being all connected with the use of the improvements in the steam engine, as applied to propel carriages or vessels and may therefore be united in one instrument. (The inventions were an engine, a propeller, and a capstan.) This case was reviewed and affirmed (11 Howard, 587, Dec. 1850) and it was stated with regard to the objection that "one set of letters patent for more than one invention is not tolerated by law": But grant that such is the result when two or more inventions are entirely separate and independent-though this is doubtful on principle-yet it is well settled in the cases formerly cited that a patent for more than one invention is not void, if they are connected in design and operation * |