As a result of examination of suggestions offered by various congresses and national and international organizations, it was found that only the International Committee of industrial and commercial property of the International Chamber of Commerce has given its opinion on this subject by the following resolution March 1923.

"The Committee believes that there should be inaugurated in all the contracting countries, actual seizure upon importation, at the order of the custom authorities, of all products carrying illegal trade-marks or false indication of origin. Consequently it would be advisable to modify Article 9 of the Convention of the Union.

The Committee requests that organizations recognized by the various governments, for instance the National Committees of the International Chamber of Commerce should be allowed to give their collaboration to the custom authorities, as specified by the laws of the countries, for application to the seizure upon importation.

The Committee calls the attention of the governments to the advantage there is in unifying, as far as the interior organization of the customs permits, the system of having trade-marks on file at the customs, as is the case in Great Britain."

The author of the article does not think it advisable to propose this reform to the Convention of the Hague as it would oblige nearly two-thirds of the unionist countries to make reforms in their legislation. It would not be desirable or useful to render the task which confronts

the delegates more difficult by inserting into the program reforms which are not absolutely urgent and for which there has not been sufficient preparation. It is suggested that Article 9 be presented to the Conference as it is except for purely formal modifications.

"We Make Inventing an Every-Day Job."

"Don't talk it, write it," is the slogan of the “inventing department" of the B. F. Goodrich Co., as told by the head of this department, Mr. John R. Gammeter, in an intensely interesting article in "System" for February, 1925.

For reasons which anyone familiar with Patent Office procedure will understand, this department of eighty inventors keeps daily written records of its activities; even the expense vouchers for trips note the purpose of the trip.

"The first thing we do when one of our men works out a new idea is to have our patent attorneys make a complete search through the patent records to see if some one else had the idea first. If we find there was a previous inventor, we go to him for permission to use his idea for whatever royalty that privilege may be worth to us. We get ideas from other people's plants, and when they come to Akron, we invite them to go through our factory. The old idea that you have to veil your plant in secrecy to protect your "trade secrets" is all outgrown. The sad fact is that very few trade secrets are secret to any one who wants to know about them and that more is to be gained from a policy of openness than from the opposite.

"There never was any one man so bright that some one else cannot invent a machine about as good as the first man invented. Why not adopt a policy of fair play, and cut out all these law-suits? If manufacturers in similar lines would pool their patents, instead of trying eternally to sue each other in court, there would be better business and more profits for every one."

According to Mr. Gameter, it takes about seven years to make a man of much account in his inventors' department, and there is no danger of running out of material to invent.

Interdepartmental Patents Board Attempting to Compile List of Patents in which Government is interested. As outlined in the American Machinist for December 4, 1924, the Interdepartmental Patents Board is making an effort to compile a list of all patents with which the government is concerned, numbering several thousand.

What Are Patents Worth?

Citing several instances of big businesses being built up on the basis of patents, only to fail when the patents were found to be invalid, Mr. H. A. Toulmin, Jr., writing in "Management and Administration" for March, 1925, says that such cases as these have caused bankers to be ultra-conservative in their valuations of patent rights. Mr. Toulmin then proceeds to set up several criteria by which patent values may be gauged, so that patents may show a real borrowing capacity. He advises a real investigation to be made by specialists, who will then appraise the patents at a fair figure, because they know the answers to the following questions, instead of merely guessing:

(1) Does the company maintain experimental departments, and patent the production of these departments? (2) Does the company's production infringe the patents of anyone else?

(3) Does the company employ patented machines for producing its product or does it make a patented product upon which it has a monopoly?

(4) How long have its patents to run?

(5) Has it trade-marks which it has widely advertised and which insure the continuity of the business even though its physical assets may be temporarily destroyed?

(6) Is the company obligated to pay license fees to

other companies, or does it receive license fees from other companies so that it will have a predominating differential in fixing its price in order to get business?

(7) Have the patent and patent properties been appraised by competent experts?

(8) How are such assets set up on the books of the company?

(9) Has the company foreign patents and trade-marks to protect its foreign trade?

CURRENT COURT DECISIONS.

SEROR et al vs. DICK, Court of Appeals, D. C. January 5, 1925.

Nolan Act, Validity. This case considered the validity of the Nolan Act. The party Dick filed an application for patent on October 1, 1913. The claims presented were rejected, and the applicant did not make response within the year allowed for action; but the year for response had not expired on August 1, 1914. The applicant alleged in his oath accompanying the application. when filed that he was a citizen of France.

The Nolan act provided that citizens of countries. which granted reciprocal privileges to citizens of the United States, whose applications had not become abandoned on August 1, 1914 but became abandoned during the World War, might be relieved from the burden of showing that the abandonment of their applications for failure to prosecute within the time allowed therefor was unavoidable; and the Commissioner had announced that the laws of France were reciprocal.

The application of Dick was revived by filing an amendment on January 27, 1922 in which he copied claims from the patent of Seror and Hoyer, whose application for patent was filed May 17, 1915.

The patentees in their preliminary statement failed to antedate the filing date of the application of Dick. On

being called upon to show cause why judgment on the record should not be entered against them, Seror and Hoyer challenged the validity of the Nolan act, they also urged that applicant Dick had not established his French citizenship or the reciprocity of the French law. It was held that Congress had authority to relieve applicants whose applications became abandoned during the World War from the burden of making a showing to the Commissioner of Patents that the abandonment was unavoidable, and that the Commissioner's holding that the French laws were reciprocal and the applicants' oath accompanying his application that he was a French citizen constituted a prima facie showing that he was entitled to the benefit of the act.

H. K.

TAGGART vs. SHILSTONE et al, Court of Appeals, D. C. January 5, 1925.

Priority-Sufficiency of disclosure. This was an interference in which Shilstone was the senior party. To establish his claim as prior inventor he introduced an affidavit executed before Taggart had begun his activities in reducing the invention to practice.

The court sustained the Patent Office in holding that since the affidavit contained a full disclosure of the invention it was sufficient to establish priority.

CARPENTER CHEMICAL CO. v. LANSDALE SILK HOSIERY CO. (D. C. E. D. Pa) Thompson, Dist. J. 2 Fed. (2nd) 976.

Mendelsohn patent 1,500,026 for a process of treating silk stockings assigned to the defendant, held substantially the same as an application by the same inventor assigned to the plaintiff.

Preliminary Injunction-Pending application and patent for same invention owned by different assignees—