CHAPTER IX. PATENTS, TRADE MARKS, COPYRIGHTS. PATENTS IN RELATION TO MANUFACTURES. The value of our patent system is eloquently outlined by Senator Platt, of Connecticut. In speaking on a bill for the reorganization of the Patent Office, he said: "To my mind, the passage of the act of 1836 creating the Patent Office marks the most important epoch in the history of our development-I think the most important event in the history of our Government from the Constitution until the Civil War. The establishment of the Patent Office marked the commencement of that marvelous development of the resources of the country which is the admiration and wonder of the world, a development which challenges all history for a parallel; and it is not too much to say that this unexampled progress has been not only dependent upon, but has been coincident with, the growth and development of the patent system of this country. Words fail in attempting to portray the advancement of this country for the last fifty years. We have had fifty years of progress, fifty years of inventions applied to the every-day wants of life, fifty years of patent encouragement, and fifty years of a development in wealth, resources, grandeur, culture, power which is little short of miraculous. Population, production, business, wealth, comfort, culture, power, grandeur, these have all kept step with the expansion of the inventive genius of the country; and this progress has been made possible only by the inventions of its citizens. All history confirms us in the conclusion that it is the development by the mechanical arts of the industries of a country which brings to it greatness and power and glory. No purely agricultural, pastoral people ever achieved any high standing among the nations of the earth. It is only when the brain evolves and the cunning hand fashions labor-saving machines that a nation begins to throb with new energy and life and expands with a new growth. It is only when thought wrings from nature her untold secret treasures that solid wealth and strength are accumulated by a people." When the Japanese Government was considering the establishment of a patent system, they sent a commissioner to the United States and he spent several months in Washington, every facility being given him by the Commissioner of Patents. One of the examiners said: "I would like to know why it is that the people of Japan desire to have a patent system." "I will tell you," said Mr. Takahashi. "You know it is only since Commodore Perry, in 1854, opened the ports of Japan to foreign commerce that the Japanese have been trying to become a great nation, like other nations of the earth, and we have looked about us to see what nations are the greatest, so that we could be like them; and we said, "There is the United States, not much more than a hundred years old, and America was not discovered by Columbus yet four hundred years ago'; and we said, 'What is it that makes the United States such a great nation?' And we investigated, and we found it was patents, and we will have patents." The examiner, in reporting this interview, added: "Not in all history is there an instance of such unbiased testimony to the value and worth of the patent system as practiced in the United States." The demonstration thus given the commercial world during the last half century of the effect of beneficent patent laws has led to their modification in all the chief industrial countries, and the salient feature of our system-a preliminary examination as to novelty and patentability prior to the grant of a patent-has in late years been incorporated into the patent systems of many foreign countries, as, for instance, Austria, Canada, Den mark, Germany, Japan, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland. The discoverer of new products of value in the arts and the inventor of new processes, or improved machines, adds to public wealth, and his right to the product of his brain is now recognized by the laws of all civilized nations. The word "patent" had its origin in royal grants to favored subjects of monopolies in trade or manufacture; but now the word is used in a restricted sense to cover improvements in inventions. A few patents for inventions were granted by the provincial governments of the American colonies and by the legislatures of the States, prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. On the 5th of September, 1787, it was proposed to incorporate in a constitution a patent and copyright clause. The germinating principle of this clause of the Constitution has vitalized the nation, expanded its powers beyond the wildest dreams of its fathers, and from it more than from any other cause, has grown the magnificent manufacturing and industrial development which we to-day present to the world. In the early days the granting of a patent was quite an event in the history of the State Department, where the clerical part of the work was then performed. It would be interesting to see Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of War, and the Attorney-General, critically examining the application and scrutinizing each point carefully and rigorously. The first year the major ity of the applications failed to pass the ordeal, and only three patents were granted. In those days every step in the issuing of a patent was taken with great care and caution, Mr. Jefferson always seeking to impress upon the minds of his officers and the public that the granting of a patent was a matter of no ordinary importance. Prior to 1836 there was no critical examination of the state of the art preliminary to the allowance of a patent application. Since the act of 1836 there have been various enactments modifying and improving the law in matters of detail. In 1861 the term for a patent was increased from fourteen to seventeen years, and in 1870 the patent law was revised, consolidated and amended; but in its salient features the patent system of today is that of the law of 1836. The subject of patents is admirably treated by Mr. Story B. Ladd, of the Census Office, and we are indebted to Bulletin No. 242 for most interesting matter herewith presented. The growth of the number of patents granted in the United States to citizens of foreign countries, is a striking feature, and shows the high esteem in which this country is held by the world at large as a field for the exploitation of invention. The per cent. of patents to foreign inventors has more than doubled during each period of twenty years since 1860. The majority of these foreign patentees are citizens of the great manufacturing countries; four-fifths of them are from England, France, Germany, and Canada; the number from the latter country being largely augmented by reason of her proximity to the United States. The patents to foreign inventors, 1890-1900, were distributed as follows: jected to restrictions in the matter of annuities or taxes payable after the grant of a patent, nor required to work an invention in this country to maintain it in force, as is the case in most foreign countries. Moreover, the thorough examination made by our Patent Office as to the novelty of an invention prior to the allowance of an application for a patent an examination that includes not only the patents and literature of our own country bearing on the art or industry to which the invention relates, but the patents of all patent-granting countries and the technical literature of the world-and the care exercised in criticising the framing of the claims have come to be recognized as of great value in the case of inventions of merit, and hence the majority of foreign inventors patenting in this country take advantage of this feature of our patent system, and secure the action of the Patent Office on an application for a patent before perfecting their patents in their own and other foreign countries, taking due precaution to have their patents in the dif ferent countries so issued as to secure the maximum term in each, so far as possible. This practice holds now in the case of probably nine-tenths of the alien inventions patented in this country. The working of an invention has never been required under our patent laws, though in most foreign countries, with the exception of Great Britain, an invention must be put into commercial use in the country within a specified period or the patent may be declared void. In the case of patents for fine chemicals and like products, which require a high order of technical knowledge and ability for their inception, and skilled workmen for their manufacture, the effect of this requirement, that the industry must be established within the country, has been most salutary in building up chemical industries within the home country, to some extent at the expense of other countries where the working of a patent is not obligatory. This shows most strongly in the case of carbon dyes and in the patents for chemicals of the class known as carbon compounds, which includes numerous pharmaceutical and medicinal compounds of recent origin, aldehydes, alcohols, phenols, ethers, etc., and many synthetic compounds, as vanillin, artificial musk, etc. There are many extensive industries which are entirely the creation of patents, and can be readily differentiated from the great mass of manufactures; for example, certain industries based upon chemical inventions and discoveries, as oleomargarine, which now employs $3,023,646 of capital, and supplies products to the value of $12,499,812; glucose, which uses $41,011,345 of capital, and gives products to the value of $21,693,656; wood pulp. which, starting with the ground-wood pulp patent of Voulter, in 1858, and following with the soda fiber and sulphite fiber processes, is now the chief material employed in paper manufacture, with products aggregating $18,497,701; high explosives, which, starting with the nitroglycerin patent of Nobel, in 1865, now includes dynamite, the pyroxylin explosives, and smokeless powder, with products aggregating $11,233,396; while the electrical industries, which now touch all fields of industrial activity, power and transportation, lighting and heating, electrochemical processes, telegraphy and telephony, employ directly and indi rectly capital extending into the billions, and are the creation of patents. The rubber industry was insignificant prior to the discovery by Charles Goodyear of the process of vulcanization, while now the products in the shape of rubber and elastic goods and rubber boots and shoes amount to $93, 716,849. Bicycles and tricycles employ $29,783,659 of capital. with products valued at $31,915,908. Manufactured ice employs $38,204,054 of capital, with a return in products of $13,874,513. Phonographs and graphophones, starting in 1877, now show the use of $3,348,282 of capital, and products to the value of $2,246,274. Photography, including the manufacture of materials and apparatus as well as the practice of the art-all the outcome of invention is now represented by 7,706 establishments, with a combined capital of $18,711 339, and products to the value of $31,038,107. The manufacture of sewing machines employs $18,739,450 of capital, and supplies products to the value of $18,314,490. manufacture of typewriters and supplies, within three decades, has become an industry that employs $8.400,431 of capital, and gives products to the value of $6,932,029. These are but examples of what may be considered as patent-created industries. The If we attempt to enumerate the industries which, existing prior to the a patented improvement which has produced a new or better article, or cheapened the cost of manufacture. The great iron and steel industry as it exists to-day is the product of countless inventions which permeate every branch thereof, and include many revolutionizing inventions, as, for example, the Bessemer process. 1880 1890 9 2 1900 1903 TOTAL NUMBER OF PATENTS TO DECEMBER 31, 1903. (Foreign Patents for 1903 Estimated). 1850 1840 2345678 ceive $2,450,880 in wages, and manu factured products to the value of $101,207,428; and, in the entire range of agricultural implements and machines now manufactured, every one, from hoe or spade to combined harvester and thrasher, has been, either in the implement or machine itself, or in the process of manufacture, the subject of The blast furnaces, rolling mills and forges and bloomeries. reported at the present census comprise 668 establishments, with a capital of $573,391,663, employing 222,490 wage-earners, with $120,820,276 paid in wages, and supplying products to the value of $803,968 273. A prohibition of the use of the patented inventions of the last half |