Mr. FARNSWORTH. I doubt if at the present time any patents would be involved. That work is almost all expired art. I am speaking now of art represented by work of Nicholson and Dr. Arnold, and vacuum technique, most of which is expired art, so that even the unlicensed companies could make such a tube.

Mr. DIENNER. Mr. Farnsworth, what was the first experience of any member of your family with the patent system?

PATENTS ON USELESS INVENTIONS

Mr. FARNSWORTH. My father, who made a very small amount of money and to whom the amount of money which I will mention represents perhaps 3 or 4 months' savings, put up in 1924 a sum to the extent of $150 to finance an invention of mine indirectly concerned with television. That is, I visualized it as a way of getting money to go on with my television work. I had contact with a certain nationally known patent attorney. The application which I got seemed to be in very good order, beautiful drawings, beautiful specifications; as I regard the patent today, totally useless. It was an idea not worth patenting. It should have been told to me that it was not worth patenting, and the fact that it was patentable can certainly be said of almost anything you can conceivably think up. There is certainly some kind of claim you can get on it.

I think that that type of practice on the patent attorney's part represents a very questionable part of our patent system, and unfortunately is the part which brings in the inexperienced inventor, and the inventor of very meager means.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean that the patent attorneys use their art in phrasing claims for ideas to induce inventors to prosecute the patent, ideas which are useless and which the patent attorney himself must know are useless.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Certainly anyone with any experience could know that the patent he obtains is worthless.

Representative REECE. My experience has been, if I may say so, that most of the people who invent something become very enthusiastic about it, though it may not hold any great promise in the minds of others who might have opportunities to look upon it.

The CHAIRMAN. I was going to say that I have a little experience, too, Congressman, with respect to the attitude of inventors or those who conceive themselves to be inventors. I suppose to every Member of Congress there come hundreds of letters from persons who think they have ideas that will save the world in one way or another. It is ordinarily the thought of these persons that somebody is waiting around the corner constantly to steal the idea, and I am sure if an attorney told such persons that the idea was impractical those persons would immediately come to the conclusion that the patent attorney was trying to steal their idea and they would go to somebody else: I have had dozens of letters which clearly indicated a belief upon the part of the person who had conceived the idea that unless he was very, very careful, somebody was going to steal it away from him. They exercise the greatest caution in being referred to attorneys. My letters read, "Can you suggest to me an attorney on whom I can rely?" and I am frank to say to you that I know of no attorney practicing

law in Washington upon whom the inventor couldn't rely to prosecute his claim honestly and fairly and exclusively.

Representative REECE. And you are rather cautious yourself, are you not, to keep yourself in a position where you might not be suspected of becoming a part of the conspiracy?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I can well understand that. I am accused of stealing ideas and inventions and everything else, from inventors who are jealous, just afraid that they are going to have their inventions stolen, but so long as we have the present interference practice it is important that such inventors get a record. If we can save 1 out of 100 inventors, if some system can be worked out so that they will make a record of their notion. We will never get rid of the nut inventor. That is a confliction in terms.

The CHAIRMAN. I was just coming to the defense of the patent attorney. I don't know how you can very well avoid the issuance of patents upon useless devices. I doubt very much whether the patent attorney as such could be held responsible for it.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. No; they unfortunately can't. That is why they are able to operate a business approximating fraud, approaching fraud. You may not know of any such attorneys in Washington, but I do, and so does everyone else who deals with patents. That seems a rather strong statement, but there is a distinction between those who attempt to give an appraisal of a possible patenting of an idea with some possible merit, and those who get a patent, no matter whether it is good, bad, or indifferent. In other words, the search is totally useless in such cases.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, if there are fraudulent practices in the prosecution of patents before the Patent Office, that certainly is a subject which ought to be thoroughly examined by the Patent Office or maybe eventually by some committee of Congress. I don't know that it is really part of the functions of this committee, working on a much broader subject.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I have said all that I want to say on that subject.

The CHAIRMAN. Fraud in the prosecution of patents is certainly a subject of great concern to the public and to the law profession, I would say.

Representative REECE. If I may venture to express an opinion, I should doubt, in my present state of mind, the advisability of the patent attorney undertaking to pass upon the utility of a patent or idea that was sought to be patented. As was brought out earlier in the hearings on this question, sometimes an idea might look utterly futile, useless, but turns out to be a very valuable idea. That isn't always the case, but sometimes it is the case, and if an attorney assumed the responsibility of passing upon the utility of a patent, and then someone else got a patent on the idea, and it turned out to be of value, he would be left in a very untenable position, it would seem to me.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I recognize, of course, the difficulties of the situation. That is why it is there.

The CHAIRMAN. Commissioner Coe, you look as though you wanted to say something.

Mr. COE. I will be very brief, but I think I should make a few remarks right at this particular moment. I agree with Congressman

Reece that the function of a patent attorney is to advise an inventor as to whether or not he can obtain a patent, and it seems to me that the case that the witness is complaining against really vindicates the patent attorney, because his judgment turned out to be correct. He did get the patent.

The Patent Office has what I think is one of the most effective controls over its attorneys of any Federal bureau. We have a Committee of Enrollment and Disbarment; we receive and take testimony and have hearings on every complaint registered by any inventor or patentee against any attorney. We frequently disbar attorneys when fraud has been indicated. So at the present time we are exerting every possible means in protecting the inventor.

In the last session of Congress the Patent Office suggested and the Congress passed a law that was designed wholly for the purpose of protecting inventors against any attorney who misrepresented his status or who in any way took advantage of the inventors to their detriment.

Mr. DIENNER. Mr. Chairman, I think we ought to bring out the fact that there was a relation between a popular magaizne and the present point. Was that the fact, Mr. Witness?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. What was that?

Mr. DIENNER. I think we ought to bring out the fact that there was a relation between a popular magazine and the point under discussion, and I was asking you whether you would bring that out. That is, where did your father learn of the particular attorney whose services he employed?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; that was through a nationally advertised mail-order attorney.

Mr. DIENNER. And you think that does not fairly give the inventor show for his hard-earned money?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I don't think it does. I think that it presents a situation against which the inventor needs to be protected. Mr. DIENNER. That is particularly the boy on the farm.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; the inventor with very limited means and with only a vague idea as to what kind of a thing a patent is, what kind of protection he is supposed to get.

Mr. DIENNER. Mr. Chairman, the witness's examination is complete from my standpoint.

The CHAIRMAN. Do any members of the committee have any questions?

Dr. LUBIN. Mr. Farnsworth, I was very much interested in your statement a few minutes ago to the effect that if you were compelled to license other people to use your patents the value of your patents would automatically disappear and there would be no further stimulus for going on with your work. I was interested in that comment and I wish you would develop the idea. To me it appears that if, for instance, you could fix any reasonable royalty that you wanted to fix, there still would be a tremendous stimulus to activity, would there not?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; but when you say "fix a reasonable royalty," what is reasonable becomes so vague as in effect to nullify the arrangement; in other words, to make it unnecessary to license anyone who wants a license. In other words, manufacture for own use is prevented. When you undertake a given development you don't know whether you will want to give licenses on that development or

not, or make it available to the public yourself, or be entitled to manufacture it yourself.

Dr. LUBIN. Do you issue licenses to anybody?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. We issue licenses on a uniform basis.

Dr. LUBIN. Are they available to anybody who wants them on that basis?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. That is the intent of our policy, to make it available to everyone on the same basis. Now there must obviously be a few exceptions to that, people who aren't qualified.

Dr. LUBIN. Would you feel that a system whereby anybody who does license patents should be compelled to license anybody else on equally equitable terms would be a deterrent to further invention? Mr. FARNSWORTH. If you could interpret what you mean by equally equitable terms. The situation gets so much more complicated than that when, for example, someone may be interested in a particular field and be much better suited to manufacture that than anybody else. They may be willing to undertake development on their own part and there may be a thousand and one other factors which make it appear that you are giving them a preferential license, when, as a matter of fact, when all factors are taken into consideration, the license is no better.

Dr. LUBIN. You may not want to commit yourself, and if you don't care to let's forget about it, but I would like to ask this question: Would you favor legislation which would compel licensing in the event that licenses had been issued to any particular person; in other words, once a license has been granted, to make such licenses available to other people?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Well, I don't know, frankly, offhand whether I would favor that or not.

Dr. LUBIN. I don't want to press it.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. That is one I would have to think about.

The CHAIRMAN. You think that a system of compulsory licensing would have a tendency to enable large aggregations of capital to compel individual inventors to subject their devices to the desires and purposes of the large aggregation?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; I am afraid it would. That would be one of the evils of it, in my opinion.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, compulsory licensing would extend to promote concentration rather than break it down.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; if I could be forced to allow a railway company to cut off this corner of my property or that corner of my property, and had no recourse outside the law, I wouldn't have a very valuable piece of property.

ALLEGED SUPPRESSION OF PATENTS IN TELEVISION FIELD

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Farnsworth, I suppose my experience is that of other members of the committee and other members of Congress, that there seems to be in the public mind a feeling that if there is any suppression of patents, it is in the field of television. Is there any basis for that feeling?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I most assuredly think there is not. I don't know of any suppression of patents as such in any field, to my personal knowledge.

The CHAIRMAN. The thought which is expressed most frequently is that there is such a large investment in the present radio field, and in various fields that are subordinate and contributory to it, that there is a desire on the part of those who control radio not to permit television to come into public use as soon as it might otherwise do. Is there any basis for that?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. No; except in this respect. When television standards are adopted it so freezes the art that we must be very sure before the standards are adopted and made available to the public that we aren't delaying ourselves by years and years and years by the very starting of the service too quickly, and I think that anything that might be interpreted as a desire to suppress invention or to hold it back from the public has been a natural desire to see that it be properly organized and the industry properly planned before commitments are too strong.

Personally, I think it has been carried to an extreme, but I am willing to grant that some holding back is necessary in the interest of the public, as well as the interest of the workers in the field.

The CHAIRMAN. There has been some holding back for this purpose? Mr. FARNSWORTH. For the purpose of knowing when we standardize on so many images per second and one wave band here and sound up on top and vision down below on the carrier, making receivers which will pick up all kinds of transmission with one type of receiver-well, it represents an enormous engineering problem and one which as a committee in the Radio Manufacturers Association we have worked hard on for 3 years.

The CHAIRMAN. Has the art of television been developed as yet to that point where it would be possible to install a receiver in your home which could receive various kinds of transmission?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Yes; it has. It has been developed to standards which are tentatively agreed on, which will make it impossible for you to tell from which kind of transmitter the signal originates.

The CHAIRMAN. What kinds of pictures can be transmitted by the present system of transmission and reception on one instrument? Mr. FARNSWORTH. What kind of subject material?

The CHAIRMAN. I am talking now about the reception instrument. What kinds of pictures, studio pictures or pictures in the field?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Outdoor pictures of news events, scheduled sport events, indoor studio pick-ups, stills for purposes of advertising, back projection, and motion-picture film-the whole scope of television.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you can divide pictures which are desirable to transmit into two types, broadly speaking, I would say. One is the studio type where the scene is enacted before the camera or the lens, and the other the outdoor type in which a scene proceeds which is not rehearsed, which may go any way.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The television is incidental to it.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, either one of those can be transmitted today?

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Either one of those may be transmitted by Farnsworth today.

The CHAIRMAN. And you have a reception machine which can take either one of those.