Congress which assembled in New York the same week that the Society of International Law met in Washington and to the fact that a letter from the President of the United States was read at that meeting recommending the negotiation of a more comprehensive international treaty for arbitration. The Association will remember that among the various bodies in this country we were the first to urge, and we have certainly been among the most active, in urging the system of arbitration among nations as a substitute for war. Finally we note the very important meeting of the Arbitration Conference at Lake Mohonk. I submit this report and move its adoption. (See the Report in the Appendix.) Dan W. Simms, of Indiana: I second the motion that the report be adopted. The President: The Committee on Grievances; is there any report from that committee? The Secretary: Mr. Storey, the Chairman, asked me to state that the committee had no report to make. The President: The Committee on Obituaries. The report of the Committee on Obituaries was read by the Secretary, as Chairman of the Committee. (See the Report in the Appendix.) The President: The report will be adopted without motion. The Committee on Law Reporting and Digesting. The Secretary: Mr. Keasbey has sent word, I believe, that there is no report to be made at this time. Roscoe Pound, of Illinois: Mr. Keasbey has written to the committee that it is deemed inadvisable to make any report at this time. The President: The Committee on Patent, Trade-Mark and Copyright Law; is there any report from that committee? Robert S. Taylor, of Indiana: The subject matter of our report has been before the Association a good many times. It is no less than five years since the Association directed the committee to make a report on the subject of a single court of last resort in patent causes. The bill which the committee reported has been the subject of discussion and amendment two or three times. At the meeting last year the committee was again directed to use its best efforts to secure its passage. The subject would not be brought up now by the committee if it were not for the fact that since the report of last year some slight alterations have been made in the form of the bill. The committee expect, unless otherwise directed by the Association, to make a more earnest and systematic effort during the next Congress to secure the passage of the bill than has been made heretofore, and we desire to have behind us the express direction and approval of the Association. I will state in a word what the changes consist of to which I refer. In the bill as previously reported and discussed it was provided that the four judges who were to sit in the Court of Patent Appeals other than the presiding judge, should be designated for that duty by the Chief Justice of the United States from among the judges of the Circuit Courts and District Courts to serve for periods of six years, and that no judge should sit for more than one period of six years, unless he had served for a period of less than six, say three years, in which case he might sit for another full period of six years. The most serious objection urged to the bill is the inconvenience which it will cause in the circuits and districts and especially in the Circuit Courts of Appeals by the frequent designation of their best judges to sit in the Court of Patent Appeals. I have had some conferences with Justices of the Supreme Court upon the subject of the bill. And that objection has been the most serious one made by any of them. At its last meeting the committee In resolved to strike out that restriction, so that as the bill now stands, the Supreme Court, instead of the Chief Justice, will designate the judges for service in the Court of Patent Appeals, and it will be within the discretion of the Supreme Court to re-designate the same judge for a further period, or periods. my last conversation with one of the Justices of the Supreme Court on the subject, he said, "This removes my last objection to the bill. I believe that if it is enacted into law in that form, the result will be that the Supreme Court will fill the Bench with the best judges it can select and keep them there.” If it should turn out so, one of the objects which was originally in mind in the drawing of the bill will be surrendered; but the committee feel that having put into the hands of the Supreme Court of the United States the entire administration of that part of the law, we can afford to be content. With this explanation—and I will not take up your time to go further into the subject because I have on previous occasions gone over it very thoroughly-I offer the following resolution: Resolved, That the report of the Committee on Patent, TradeMark and Copyright Law and the draft of the bill accompanying the said report be, and the same are approved by the Association; and the committee is directed to use its best efforts to secure the passage of the bill. Arthur Steuart, of Maryland: Albert H. Walker, of New York: I will move an amendment to this motion. The subject is one of very great importance. I am not known to all the members of this Association, and, therefore, I will begin by saying that I am Mr. Walker, the author of "Walker on Patents," and I have been somewhat acquainted with the administration of the Patent Law in a practical way for over thirty years. Now, this is my amendment: Resolved, That this Association favors the creation of a Court of Patent Appeals in accordance with the bill presented by the Committee on Patent, Trade-Mark and Copyright Law, except that the judges of that court should be appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The only difference between Mr. Taylor and myself in respect of this proposed legislation, is that according to his resolution, the proposed court is to consist of five justices, the Chief Justice to be appointed by the President, as other federal judges are, but the four Associate Justices are to be selected by the Supreme Court of the United States from among the circuit and district judges in forty-five states. Now, I object on public grounds to Mr. Taylor's idea, and for the following reasons: The constitutionality of that method of filling the Bench of a federal court is to say the least, very questionable. The constitution provides that the judges of the United States courts shall be appointed by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Now, this proposition is to confer upon the Supreme Court of the United States the funetion of filling all the associate seats in a new court of very high importance, a court holding appellate jurisdiction, from all the Circuit and District Courts in patent causes. Judge Taylor is an excellent lawyer, and he holds that his method of filling the Bench is constitutional, but I am sure that he will agree with me in the statement that it is a new departure; it is a plan that has never been tried yet in the history of the United States, and I very much apprehend that if it is tried in this instance the Supreme Court will be compelled to decide that all decrees entered by that proposed Court of Patent Appeals will be void, because of its not being a constitutional court. Passing that point, the next proposition that I base my opposition upon is, that even if this method of filling the Bench is constitutional it is inexpedient for these reasons. Those federal judges who are to be the material from which the Supreme Court is to fill those seats are already busily engaged in administering justice in their own jurisdictions and they cannot be spared to go to Washington for six years. Judge Taylor hopes that the four seats would be filled by those federal judges who have had the most experience in patent causes. Now, we know that those federal judges are Colt, of Boston; Lacombe, of New York, and Coxe of Utica, and possibly a few others of less experience, but those are the prominent patent judges of the United States. How can Judge Lacombe be spared from New York to go to Washington and decide patent causes exclusively for six years? How can Judge Colt be spared to go there for six years, or any of the other judges? How can any one of the great federal patent law judges be spared from their present work to undertake this new line of work in Washington? This bill proposes to give to the Supreme Court of the United States the positive power to assign these judges just as a military officer would assign his subordinates. I fancy that the Justices of the Supreme Court would not exercise that power, however, against the will of the proposed appointee. He would probably be consulted beforehand and if he was decidedly unwilling to abandon the life-work he has been engaged in and go to Washington, I do not think they would absolutely compel him to go. Therefore, the Supreme Court would have to select men from remote parts of the country who could be more readily spared from their jurisdictions. And those judges that would have to be selected are judges who have had little or no experience in patent causes, because it so happens that nearly all of our patent litigation is conducted in either New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, or Chicago, and in those cities the federal judges are overwhelmed with work already and they cannot be spared to undertake this new work. If you go to Texas or North Dakota, you will go to sections where the federal judges never hear a patent cause. There are a great many districts where no patent case has ever been litigated. Now, if my amendment is adopted, the duty of filling the Bench will be imposed upon the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of the Senate, just as all the federal judges have heretofore been appointed in the history of our government. If this Association commits itself to Judge Taylor's bill, it will reflect upon either the competency or the good faith of the President of the United States, in appointing judicial officers, and it will also reflect upon the constitution of the United States, which has prescribed that method of appointing |