BY WALTER A. WILLIAMS. The real crux of the unemployment conference, at the time of writing still going on in Washington, is found in the Committee on Measures by Employers.

Col. Arthur Woods has been chosen by the President to remain in Washington, form a permanent bureau and carry out through a decentralized national organization using the mayors of cities as the nucleus, all the practicable recommendations made by the conference. Herbert Hoover has tackled the great national problem of recurring periods of depression and unemployment with the same enthusiasm he brought to the relief of Belgium. He and the manufacturers' committee and Col. Woods form the links in a chain which may well prove one of the most significant movements in America to break away from blind submission to recurring cycles, and make a whole-hearted attempt to profit by the past and look forward with formulated plans instead of fear.

It is perfectly obvious that all the professional uplifters, registration sharks and employment agency experts can be of little avail unless

In

the big manufacturers of the country have sufficient orders to keep their factories going-that is why the manufacturers' committee is the crux of the situation. It is almost as equally obvious that a more careful study of the practice of trade marking products, and so drawing closer to the final consumer, is one of the most important things before the men in the socalled basic industries today. the first place a careful registration of the unemployed will show that the big percentage of those men now unwillingly idle, are in metal trades and similar industries such as iron and steel, where products are not trade marked, and the manufacturer is far removed from his final buyer. The final consumer for a steel mill may be a farmer who buys his steel in the form of plows and farm implements, the big contractor who erects a giant skyscraper and any one of a number of other individuals. But all of them are miles removed from the owner of the steel plant, who when his demand slacks off is not able like the shoe manufacturer with his trade marked product to go out after his trade with more aggressive

selling and merchandising methods, but closes his plant and waits for the orders to reappear.

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There is no desire on my part in this article to offer trade marking and better merchandising as a panacea for all our industrial ills, nor to deny that many makers of trade marked merchandise forced to greatly curtail or shut down production during the recent slump, but the fact remains that most of those big companies which: have gone ahead on full time production and are doing a larger business than last year are those which have branded merchandise that they have made known to the buying public. A man with unnamed, unbranded merchandise, which, like a mule, is without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, may wish to tell his consumer about his improved quality and lower price due to savings in operating and distribution costs, but unless his product is capable of quick national identification his actions are of little avail. The advantages of trade marked merchandise are clearly seen when a soap or shovel manufacturer tries to tell a steel man how he is able to keep his plant running at full time now. And as the manufacturers at the conference continue to discuss permanent measures, the advisability for a careful study of the reasons for trade marks and the sort of merchandising that is put behind trade. marked merchandise, becomes even more apparent.

One of the big reasons for recurring cycles of depression is the prevalence of the seasonable industry. The experts at the Department of Commerce, it is understood, have furnished the manufacturers with a list of those companies which have been able to

lengthen their selling seasons, and turn what was formerly a seasonal demand into a steady twelve months' demand with its consequent greater stability and continuity of employment.

Without exception these examples consisted of companies maktrade ing marked merchandise which had been known to the buying public, and the sales reasons for its year round use demonstrated.

When the Washington conference went on record to recognize the final consumer as the man who sets prices, and by his purchases starts the wheels of industry moving to pay both labor its wages and capital capital its dividend rewards, it gave to the business practice of trade marking merchandise a most important national indorsement.

And it seems to me that the principle of trade marking has a most important after effect. It can't stop with the putting of a name or tag on a product for identification. The very act of trade marking is comparable to the signing of a promissory note for future quality and service. To the man who does not know us as individuals we might just as well never have existed. So the unbranded product promises nothing. But the identified product means that the man who puts it out promises to dedicate himself and his factory to produce for use and service as well as profit.

His principle of merchandising is sooner or later bound to be small profit per unit, with big volume and quick turnover. And the man who builds on such a foundation is building on the solid bed rock of public esteem and good will. If any man thinks that such apparently intangible qualities have no

practical bearing upon the stability and prosperity of an industry let him take a few days to compare the trade marked cloak and suit industry of Cleveland, with its high. morale, efficient production, and progress, with the same industry in New York City. There are highly efficient individuals in the latter place, but a short investigation will show that there is something radically different, and in my opinion far more valuable in the industry as typified in the former locality. Let the man who has wondered about the advisability of putting out a product of his own under a trade mark write to one of the business publications for their list of firms which are forging ahead this year or ask his friends for their list. He will find most of them to be concerns with nationally known trade marks. Let him then talk to the men in those textile lines and metal trades whose

business consists in making goods for other people to use eventually after some other manufacturer and a few others have intervened, and then to those manufacturers who know just where and who their final consumer is. These latter if their goods were trade marked knew also that their final consumer knew them, and would respond to their better selling and economies in distribution if he shared the savings

with them.

These are the men who are going forward now, and men in the steel, iron, certain textile lines, and many others could afford to give careful consideration to their methods. It would be a fine thing for their industries and it would materially help the business of the whole country if this careful study should happen to give them some better selling and merchandising ideas.

Argentina

Editorial from "La Nacion" Advocating Better Patent Office Facilities.

Among the Bureaux of Public Administration, the Patent and Trade Mark Office is, without doubt, one of those that need an immediate reform, due to the extraordinary importance that it has assumed and by reason of the incessant increase in its functions. Its labors a result of the industrial progress of a Nation-are beset with responsibilities, and there is required above all a special quickness of procedure, inasmuch as administrative action can not be hindered, but should be carried through to the end of initiating trade. This is the understanding in the various countries of Europe and in the United States of America, where the Department controlling patents and trade marks possesses a special building for itself and carries out its duties on its own initiative. Here our Department, which improperly depends on the Ministry of Agriculture and is found located with the Tribunals, in spite of the efforts of its personnel, despatches the cases of applicants after a delay of eight months or longer-that is to say that it is only after such a period that an industrial learns of the administrative resolution in accordance with which the filed application is accepted or rejected.

It is easy to imagine the prejudices that this causes as regards those that wish to carry out commercially an invention that possesses great utility, as also those that attempt to register trade marks for goods that arrive from abroad, having to wait beyond the period

of weariness to put them in circulation.

This serious delay in the respective Department-already originating protests among merchants— must not cause surprise, since it is logical that it must occur from the fact that the said Office is lacking in the elements indispensable for dispatching rapidly the quantity— each day greater of cases and matters. It is not so long since the Minister himself proposed certain reforms to the Congress, same being accepted, but up to the present the Executive Power has not put them into practice. In order to give an idea of the situation of which we speak, it suffices to point out that the Patent and Trade Mark Division contributed to the public revenues this year the sum of approximately one million pesos gold. In the United States, previously, an analogous tendency towards industrial progress, although on a greater scale, has initiated proposals for various reforms, and an attempt was made to make a Cabinet Department of this Bureau. It would be expedient if in our country a like realization might be crystallized, that the proposed reform might be carried out, and that the personnel of the Office might be increased and its services perfected, so that, finally, the Patent and Trade Mark Office might fulfill the function that it is intended to carry out. (Translation from La Nacion (Buenos Aires), July 12, 1921.)

Australia

Western Australian Patent
Appealed to Privy Council.

Before THE JUDICIAL COMMITTEE
OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL ON

APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA. Present: Viscount Haldane and Lords Buckmaster and Shaw. April 25th and 26th; and May 30th, 1921.

WESTRALIAN

POWELL WOOD PROCESS LD. v. THE CROWN.

Patent of Western Australia.Petition of Right. License to Crown.-License purporting to continue after expiration of patent.— Validity of license.-Licensee held by Supreme Court of Western Australia not entitled to determine license on expiration of patent.— Judgment reversed by High Court of Australia. - Appeal to Privy Council dismissed.-Western Australian Patent Act, 1888, Section 32. Commonwealth of Australia Patents Act, 1903, Sections 4 and 6. Commonwealth of Australia Patents Act, 1903-1909, Sections 87 (A) and B (2) and 92.

In February, 1904 a Patent was granted under the Western Australian Patent Act, 1888, for a process for the treatment and preservation of timber. In 1912 the owners of the Patent granted to the Government of Western Australia a license to use the process at certain royalties. The license was to remain in force until a date five years after the expiration of the Patent in 1918. On the expiration of the Patent notices were given on behalf of the Crown, terminating the license. The owners of the Patent commenced a suit by Petition of Right in the Supreme Court of Western Australia. They contended that by the grant of the State Patent, they had acquired the right to impose the condition that deferred royalties should be paid, and that that right had been reserved to them under Section 6 of