glass, etc. The function of these rolls is not to make sheet iron, crack wheat, wring clothes, or calender paper. It would hardly be sensible to reject a process of preparing grain for food by passing it between metal rolls, on the ground that the process is the function of the machine, for it is no more the function of the rolls to crush wheat than to make sheet iron or wring clothes. In approaching a question of this sort, instead of concluding at once that the process is the mere function of the machine, it should be considered in accordance with the fundamental principles. First, the result is disintegrated wheat in flaky form, conclusively old as a conception. The process of producing it by applying pressure sufficient to break down its resistance and flatten the grain, is disclaimed and conceded to the public. The rolls as a piece of mechanism are disclaimed. Their capability of applying pressure must be conceded as known. Was there then any invention in using a known pressure applying instrument, for carrying out a presumptively known process of flaking wheat by applying pressure?

Such a question is always one of invention. Some things cannot be done by hand. Gases cannot be confined without instrumentalities, and metals cannot be shaped by the fingers. Instruments are usually necessary to the practice of processes. A claim for a process practiced by a particular instrument as a rule does not define the real invention; but it is conceivable that the use of a particular instrumentality for practicing a process may be of the essence of the invention, or that a new process may be devised for operating an old machine. Denial of validity of process inventions by allegations that they are the mere functions of a machine would better give place to treatment by considering the novelty and utility in the abstract process or series of steps as a mental conception divested from any instrumentalities, and then, presuming the abstract process to be disclaimed, considering whether there was any invention in selecting the stated instruments to aid in practicing it.

BOOK REVIEWS.

PATENTS, by R. S. HOAR. Published by The Ronald Press, New York; 232 pages, $4.50.

The book is avowedly a treatise on patent tactics plus a translation into plain English of so much of the patent law as will enable a business executive to understand his attorney and to co-operate fully with him. We doubt that the explanations are entirely stripped of technicalities of terminology and fear that an executive while he reads the book would want a patent lawyer at hand for frequent explanations. It is not a law book; only two or three cases are cited, although some of the text is an obvious quotation or paraphrase of judicial holdings. Several of the chapters will be interesting and probably informing to most patent lawyers, especially "Patent Office Tactics," "The Choice of An Attorney," "Searches" and "Interferences," which should be especially so to younger attorneys beginning practice. The field is covered with remarkable accuracy and with much understanding of the tradition of the profession.

Thirteen states have laws dealing with promissory notes or contracts for sale of patents and the essence of the law of each State is given with some comment. Over and over the author endeavors to distinguish between "domination" by a patent and "anticipation" of a patent. Confusion of these terms he thinks is at the root of most misunderstanding of patent law. His discussion of forms of Patent Contracts is sketchy and inadequate and sometimes misleading. A good index enables the reader to find almost anything in the book.

The Patent Office examiner is described as "representing the public and trying to give the inventor the least possible monopoly in return for his disclosure." "Patent examiners are overworked and underpaid, and often issue a patent which is obviously void because of some overlooked prior patent which is directly in point." Multiplicity of claims "will irritate and annoy the ex

aminer, and if the patent ever gets into court will cause the Judge to interpret it most narrowly." When an application for reissue is filed "if there are no changes to be made in the drawing, a print of the old drawing can be used for purpose of examination.” "Of the 200 Patent Office Rules 43 relate exclusively to Interferences, and nearly half of the rest touch upon the subject either directly or indirectly. Yet only a negligible number of the patent applications filed ever become involved in an interference." "If the declaration of interference indicates that any of the involved applications have been assigned, the assignments, if consulted in the Patent Office, will give the filing dates of the applications." "As a last resort, if the device is clearly non-patentable, one can nevertheless obtain a degree of patent protection by marking the device with a simple trade-mark and registering the trade-mark. This registration will entitle one to add the magic words 'Registered in U. S. Patent Office,' which most persons will interpret as meaning that the device is patented. As the chief value of a patent is merely as a scarecrow, one will thus have obtained the chief value of a patent."

We are surprised to find, and not entirely in agreement with: A preliminary injunction "will usually not be granted if the defendant is financially responsible." "It would be most unfortunate to have an application allowed without any rejections." "The concluding clause, 'substantially as described,' or its equivalent, puts a real limitation on the claim, so that it applies only to a structure which will accomplish the stated object of the invention in substantially the manner described in the invention." "It is almost always inadvisable to delay filing an application until a preliminary search can be made to determine the probable patentability of the invention." "By special treaty with Germany patents owned by American nationals are exempt from working and nonimportation requirements."

Especially regrettable is the discussion at page 177 that "Even an invalid patent may be valuable."

Despite a few errors the books is good reading for the inventor, the patent owner, the general practitioner and the patent lawyer and it deserves wide circulation.

K. F.

ANNOTATED FEDERAL JUDICIAL CODE AND JUDICIARY, by J. L. HOPKINS. Third Edition. Published by W. H. Anderson Co., Cincinnati; 567 pages, $5.00.

This new edition of the standard well known Federal practitioners' indispensable tool is enlarged to include all of Title 28 of the new United States Code of 1926 as well as the amendatory acts down to the opening of the present session of Congress. Each section is given not only its section number in the Judicial Code but also its section number in the United States Code so that a reference to either may be easily made or found, although it is a little confusing to find that prior to section 451 of U. S. Code "Sec." refers to Judicial Code but thereafter to U. S. Code. The notes are ample and adequate and generally reliable. It is disappointing, however, to find the note to the important Sec. 639 U. S. Code (which is R. S. 863) "Considered with Equity Rule 47. See note, Hopkins Fed. Eq. Rules, 5th ed., p. 225.” There is hardly justification for printing the act of Mar. 4, 1915, on page 237 and repeating it as U. S. Code 251 on page 242. At page 240 we find the act of June 25, 1910, as amended July 1, 1918 so printed as to appear to be a part of Sec. 145 of the Judicial Code and of U. S. Code 250.

The present volume contains so many laws that it would be very helpful to have a table index of sections of Revised Statutes and of Acts of Congress.

These are minor defects and take little if any from the debt the profession owes the author for keeping his valuable work up to date.

K. F.

PERIODICAL ARTICLES.

Radio Patent Structure and What It Means.

The complicated maze of radio patents, and what it means to the future of radio, is discussed in the November, 1926, Radio Broadcast by French Strother. According to Mr. Strother, the patent situation in radio is unbelievably complicated, with twenty-four hundred American patents alone, in addition to the numerous applications now on file. These patents include of course, not only the basis elements, but the various ways in which these basic elements may be combined. Materials, methods, ideas, combinations of ideas, combinations of methods-all are involved in a maze of conflicting patents, owned by different (often antagonistic) inventors and their licensees. The future of radio, therefore, so far as patents affect it, is in the hands of the courts. And, though the courts are undoubtedly honest and hardworking, the judges are not electrical experts, and some of their decisions seem, to the qualified engineers, to be contrary to the weight of the evidence. Nevertheless, right or wrong, these decisions have the weight of law.

Mr. French traces the patent situation with regard to certain key patents, noting, however, that the critical patents to-day are not the critical patents of a few years. ago. "With the rapid advance of the art, the control of a basic idea does not rest in the basic patent, but rests in the patent upon some more recent refinement of the basic idea, or upon some new method of manufacturing the device, as is the case of the tube. The second point to be observed is that, in this process of refinement, the advantage is all on the side of the big corporation as against the small independent company or as against the individual inventor. The reader may here need to be reminded of the systematic method by which invention is stimulated by the large manufacturing corporations whose business depends upon patents. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, for ex