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LETTER

OF

THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS,

IN RELATION

To Arts and Manufactures for the year 1851.

MARCH 16, 1852.-Read.

AUGUST 30, 1852.-Ordered to be printed, and that 17,000 additional copies be printed, 2,000 of which for the Commissioner of Patents.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE,

March 13, 1852.

SIR: I have the honor of transmitting to you, with the view of its being laid before Congress, that portion of the Report of this Office for the year 1851 which relates to Arts and Manufactures. Its presentation has been delayed for the completion of a Report on the World's Exposition, by Mr. Riddle, commissioner from the United States, which it was desirable to include.

The second or Agricultural section of the Report will shortly be submitted.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
THOMAS EWBANK.

Hon. Wм. R. KING,

Vice President of the United States,

and President of the Senate.

REPORT

OF THE

COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.

I.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE, January, 1852.

SIR: Before introducing the usual financial and statistical sections of the Report, I beg to submit some remarks and suggestions in relation to

THE PATENT OFFICE, ITS ADMINISTRATION, ETC.

1. On the Supervision exercised by the Secretary of the Interior.— There is in the business of the Patent Office nothing congenial with or allied to that which is transacted in the departments, while its very nature is such as to render exterior control often embarrassing. Whatever may have been expedient in the infancy of its organization, when it was little else than a clerkship under the Secretary of State, its position and requirements are very different now. To vest a controlling power over its administration in heads of departments who have no time to devote to it, and who, from education, habits, profession, and feelings, can have little or no active sympathies with interests represented in it, or with the class of citizens with whom it has most to do, can hardly prove otherwise than prejudicial. Hence there is an increasing desire among inventors and patentees, mechanics, manufacturers and others, whose feelings no less than their interests centre in the Patent Office, that its dependency on the department should cease.

On this subject I beg to quote from a communication addressed by me to the Secretary of the Interior on the 30th of January last:

"There is probably no question bearing more on the future usefulness and efficient administration of the Patent Office than the extent to which Congress designs it to be subject to any other department. Exclusively devoted to the progress of science and art, to the development of new elements of civilization, it should be protected in the prosecution of its mission, wholly freed from political influences; and it is believed that no administration can more readily command the approbation of reflect

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