vides a period of twenty years for the duration of its registrations, and provides for renewals, both of registrations originally effected under the Act of 1881 and registrations effected under the Act of 1905, for a new period of twenty years.

We are renewing this year trade marks registered in 1895 under the Act of 1881 and also trade marks registered in 1905 under the Act of 1905. Renewals are being effected to the extent of 40 to 60 a week, and the number is increasing.

The trade mark statute provides that a certificate of registration is prima facie evidence of ownership and this office assumes that the mark continues in use for the period of the certificate of registration. We regularly cite against applications for registration live certificates of registration and refuse to register a mark the same as or similar to that of a live certificate of registration. Sometimes the applicant is able to bring in proof to show that the registered mark has become abandoned and is no longer used. The mark then may be registered to the new user, after proper interference procedure.

The Act of 1905 provides for three contested inter partes proceedings. It provides that if two pending applications include the same mark, or substantially the same mark, an interference may be declared, the issues of which are fought out somewhat like patent interferences, there being no preliminary statements required however. It is interesting to note that unlike patents a trade mark must be used to be kept alive. An interference will be declared between an application to register and a registered mark, if the applicant can make a prima facie showing that the registered mark has become abandoned or can swear to his owning the mark prior to the dates of the registration.

After an application for registration has been examined by the office and the office finds it registrable, we are required by statute to publish the mark, together with the name of the applicant and the goods to which it is applied, in the Official Gazette, and any one who

would be damaged by the registration of the mark may file a formal opposition to its registration within 30 days of the date of the publication.

Again, if some one finds a registered mark, the registration of which he believes is damaging him, he may file a petition at any time to have the registration canceled. Opposition and cancellation proceedings are conducted somewhat like equity suits in the United States courts, testimony being taken by deposition. They, like interferences, are determined in the first instance by the special examiner of interferences devoting all of his time to trade mark matters. Ex parte appeals from the examiner of trade marks and from the examiner of interferences go directly to the Commissioner in person, and not to the examiners-in-chief, their jurisdiction being limited entirely to patent matters. From the Commissioner an appeal may be taken to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.

I suggested above that there were several classes of marks which might lawfully be used, but which were refused registration under the Act of 1905, such as descriptive words, geographical words, names of individuals and corporations etc. The courts sometimes give protection to those marks and in many foreign countries they are registrable marks. In order to place our citizens on the same footing as foreigners with respect to these marks, the Act of March 19, 1920, was passed, which, among other things, provides for registration of trade marks which are not against public policy, but which are forbidden registration under the Act of 1905. These registrations are granted without publication for opposition and there is no provision for interference with respect to them. They may be canceled, however, in a manner similar to cancellation procedure under the Act of 1905. In order to be eligible for registration under the Act of 1920 the mark must have been in exclusive use for one year prior to the application for registration. While the intent of the Act of 1920 was to place such marks on the register for the purpose of allowing them to

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be registered abroad, there was also included in the Act of 1920 legislation giving to registrations under that Act substantially all of the attributes of registration under the Act of 1905, the substantial distinction being that a certificate of registration under the Act of 1905 is prima facie evidence of the ownership of the mark, whereas no such provision is made for registrations under the Act of 1920. The decision of the Commissioner of Patents is final, no provision being made by the Act of 1920 for appeal to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. (U. S. Compression Inner Tube Co. v. Climax Rubber Co., 1923 C. D., 211; 312 O. G., 400.)

Let me emphasize again that the right to a trade mark is obtained by using that mark, irrespective of registration. The right to a trade mark obtained by use will be protected under the common law, by the State courts, and by the United States courts if there is proper diversity of citizenship and value of matter in litigation. Registration in the office, therefore, is largely merely the act of the owner of the mark making public record and notice of his claim to ownership of the mark. Registration, therefore, does not give the right to use the mark, but is a record of formal claim to such right. It gives a right to sue in the United States courts with statutory increase of damages and destruction of infringers' labels etc. It also gives the right to prevent importation of goods bearing that infringing mark when a certified copy of registration is transmitted to the Treasury Department, and, as I have already indicated, it lays the foundation for registration in foreign countries, many of which require registration in the home country as a prerequisite to registration there.

The United States Patent Office issues for free distribution a Circular of General Information about Trade Marks, Labels and Prints which has been found useful by many.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES.

PART I

By JAMES H. LIGHTFOOT,

Principal Examiner, Division Twenty-five,

U. S. Patent Office.

INTRODUCTION.

This paper is of a general elementary character, intended to be at least suggestive of a field of study which, because of its elementary character, may have been to some extent neglected and it contains reference to fundamental principles involved in the establishment of the patent system and in the grant and refusal of letters patent and some consideration of statutory provisions relating to the examination of patent applications which, it is thought, are in accord with elementary principles and fundamental law.

In this the most remarkable of all industrial ages men are studying and seeking as never before to find fundamental truths in all departments of human knowledge and effort. Men well know that the deeper and the more profound the ascertained fundamental facts and principles upon which human knowledge is based, the higher Iwill be the character and substance of the structure and system of human attainment based thereon.

In the more limited field of law and jurisprudence, there are clear indications that men of profound thought upon the bench and in the profession of the law, are of the opinion that existing law and procedure should be revised and simplified so that legal fiction and technicality may not stand in the way to prevent the rendition of decisions that accord with fundamental truth and simple justice.

And in a very special way the investigation of fundamental truths involved in the development of industrial

progress, if applied in the work which we as judicial officers of the government are called upon to do, should in some measure at least, result in a fairer view of the matters of substance which must be considered in determining whether products of man's creative genius shall or shall not be published to the world as patented inventions.

Moreover, it is believed that the work of examining applications for patents should be vitalized and made of more lively and absorbing interest to the examiner, and it is submitted that the thorough study of fundamental principles and the full and deliberate application of them to the examination of alleged inventions, may to some extent at least, assist in attaining this much desired end.

It is believed that before an examiner can appreciate the full importance and true significance of the judicial and technical work that he has to do, he should be thoroughly familiar with all fundamental principles involved in the grant or refusal of letters patent for inventions.

He should know whether patents are in fact monopolistic or not monopolies in restraint of trade; he should know of the educational character of the grant and its bearing upon the question of patentability; he should know of the contractual character of the grant and how it is involved in the proper attitude and point of view of the examiner in considering cases before him; he should know the true meaning of the constitutional provision upon which our patent system is based and its true relation to the character of the grant that should be issued; he should know the real meaning of the statutes, and he should know that existing statutes are absolute controlling factors in determining the practices involved in the examination of patent applications; he should know the law of evidence and how to weigh evidences of patentability or the want of it, upon the scales of evenly balanced judgment and justice alike to the inventor and to the people; and he should know that he, himself, is a very important positive factor, in probably the greatest constructive, industrial educational system that the world has ever known, designed to cre