Salaries paid in British office taken from table in report of President's Economy and Efficiency Commission of 1912. English money terms changed to read in United States terms. The following increase in salary were made by the British Patent Office in 1917, as compared with salaries paid in 1912: Comptroller general Chief clerk. Librarian Superintendent of sale branch_ Chief examiner Register of designs and trade-marks_ Supervising examiners___ Senior examiners (16); examiners (19) Examiner (38); examiners (11)_ Deputy examiners (3). Assistant examiners (190) Higher division clerks (6); upper division clerks (7). Mr. MACCRATE. Does the English Patent Office keep its men longer than we keep our men in the American Patent Office? Mr. NEWTON. I think they do; but they pay a good deal more than we do. Mr. MACCRATE. Is that true all through their civil service, especially in the high-grade positions, that the men stay longer in the British service than they do in the American service! Mr. NEWTON. That I do not know. The head of their office is under the civil service. They have not changed the head of their patent office for 15 or 20 years. Mr. MACCRATE. What branch of the English Government does the patent office come under? Does it exist as a separate department, or is it under one of the ministers? Mr. NEWTON. It is under one of the ministers. It is an independent office in Germany. I would like to leave with the committee a statement showing the amount received by draftsmen. Our draftsmen are very poorly paid, from $1,000 to $1,400. We can not get draftsmen for that amount any more. So far as the salaries of draftsmen are concerned, out of about 10 different departments here the salaries we pay them are the lowest. We are at the bottom of the list, so far as the salaries we pay draftsmen are concerned. I do not know why these salaries are so much poorer in the Patent Office than in other departments, but it is a fact, and it is creating havoc with us now. (The matter referred to is as follows:) This chart shows by comparison that the average of salaries paid to the draftsmen of the other departments is greater in every case than those paid to the draftsmen of the Patent Office. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Office of Supervising Architect, Treasury Department. Bureau of Ordnance, Docks, and Yards, Navy Department. 1 Reduction in salary. 2 A new position. 3 Decrease of 1 in number. 4 Decrease of 3 in number. Decrease of 27 in number. I would also like to leave with the committee a chart showing the Diagrams contrasting the number of clerks of classes 1, 2, 6, and 4 at $1,200, $1,400, $1,600, and $1,800, respectively, in the Patent Office, with the average number of such clerks in 12 other offices designated. Mr. MACCRATE. Have you any figures, Mr. Commissioner, with reference to the number of employees who have left the Patent Office and gone to the other branches of the Government here? Mr. NEWTON. No; I have not; but I could get them. Nearly all of our resignations during the last two years have been resignations of people who have resigned to go to other departments. The CHAIRMAN. Notwithstanding the fact that there was supposed to be a ban on that, a great many of your men did go to other departments, to independent war bureaus, at increased salaries? Mr. NEWTON. Yes. They would even resign and make it known afterwards that they had gone there. You could not prevent that. My attention is called to the fact that there have been amendments proposed to H. R. 5011. I agree with all the proposals they make there with this exception, that there is no use in publishing those notices in the Gazette that are sent by the clerks of the courts relating to the litigation of any patent case. The Gazette is no place for that. If anyone wants to look it up, the natural place would be to go to the files of the application or the files of the patent, and all that is necessary is to put that notice from the clerk of the court into the files of the application and not publish it in the Gazette. There was also a change which I suggested, or that has been presented to you, in reference to the fees. We have a good many cases where there has been a fee of $15 paid as an initial fee. It does not do to let those cases go to publication with $15 as a final fee. They ought to be charged $20. But in the case of applications where the initial fee is $20, then the final fee should be made $15; and those are the only cases where the final fee should be made that amount. Mr. PRINDLE. Mr. Chairman, there are just one or two points I would like to call to the attention of the committee. The CHAIRMAN. It is now 10 minutes after 12 o'clock, and the members of the committee desire to be on the floor of the House as soon as they can; and I would suggest that you may extend your remarks in the record covering the points you have in mind by a letter. Mr. PRINDLE. I will be glad to do that. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, the committee will stand adjourned until next Thursday morning at half past 10 o'clock. (Thereupon the committee adjourned to meet Thursday, July 17, 1919, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.) COMMITTEE ON PATENTS, The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. John I. Nolan (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. You may proceed, Mr. Robertson. Give your full name and whom you represent. STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS E. ROBERTSON, 605 SEVENTH STREET NW., WASHINGTON, D. C., PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PATENT LAW ASSOCIATION. Mr. ROBERTSON. May it please the committee: The American Patent Law Association is composed of patent lawyers from all parts of the country, from Portland, Me., to San Francisco, Calif. This association does not seek or oppose legislation unless it first submits the matters about which legislation is pending to the various members of the association all over the country. In other words, it gets a consensus of opinion on the part of the bar by a referendum vote. The court of patent appeals bill and the bill for increasing salaries bring up two questions that have been before the association for many years, and on those two questions the association has taken a most decided stand affirmatively. The question of forming an independent bureau for the Patent Office was not brought before the association by Mr. Prindle in behalf of the National Research Council until the 26th of June, just a few days before your hearings began, and hence the American Patent Law Association has not been able to get a consensus of opinion of its members, and my remarks therefore on that bill will be made in behalf of myself personally and not for the association; but I am speaking for the association in connection with the proposed court of patent appeals. Now, your committee has asked some very important questions with respect to that court, and the questions seem to indicate that your committee is ready to follow the unanimous-or what seems to be the unanimous-opinion of the bar and grant us a court of patent appeals, but you are somewhat at sea as to whether the court shall have what I might call a "shifting personnel," bringing the judges here from a distance from their circuits and returning them, or what might be called a "permanent personnel," having judges appointed the same as the Supreme Court judges are. In distinguishing these two I shall therefore refer to one as the shiftingpersonnel bill and to the other as the permanent personnel bill. While you have had brought to your attention the advantages, the necessity, the real need for a court of appeals, if you will be indulgent I should like to read just one paragraph of a decision of one of the district courts, the eastern district of Pennsylvania. I am reading from the Federal Reporter, volume 117, page 845, in the case of Hanifen et al. v. Armitage et al., where the court was considering a United States patent. The court said: It This patent has been the subject of marked vicissitude. It was at first sustained by Judge Dallas in this court in Hanifen v. E. H. Godshalk Co. (C. C., 78 Fed., 811), but upon a rehearing, on account of certain expert evidence by which he felt himself controlled, he decided against it. On appeal, however, he was reversed and the patent upheld, although the court of appeals was not unanimous, Judge Butler dissenting from the views of Judge Shiras and Judge Acheson, who constituted the majority. (28 C. C. A., 507; 84 Fed., 849.) came up again before Judge Gray in Hanifen v. Lupton (C. C., 95 Fed., 465), where the validity of the patent was conceded, the suit being defended on other grounds. It next appeared in the second circuit and was sustained by Judge Townsend in a well-considered opinion (Hanifen v. Price (C. C., 96 Fed.. 435); but he in turn was reversed by the court of appeals of that circuit in an opinion by Judge Shipman, and the patent declared invalid. (42 C. C. A., 484; 102 Fed., 509.) On account of these conflicting decisions in the two circuits, the Supreme Court allowed a certiorari in the latter case, and it was supposed that the matter would be thus put at rest. But again there was a serious difference of views, which resulted in an affirmance by an equally divided court. Such an affirmation establishes no precedent or principle (7 Am. & Eng. Enc. Prac., p. 44), and, so far as this court is concerned, the decision of the court of appeals of this circuit sustaining the patent therefor remains. This is a picture painted by a United States district court showing the need of a patent court of appeals. If we had had a patent court of appeals in that case, the first appeal would have decided all questions that were brought before it once and for all. I think that has been admitted by all. We have had numbers of cases where this same conflict has arisen between the different circuit courts of appeal, and they have been referred to; but I wish now to call attention to one more, the last case before the Supreme Court. This related to electric washing machines, which are of vast importance, used all over the country to help out in the domestic problems of to-day. The complainant in that case had two washing machines, operated electrically, connected up in the Supreme Court chamber. A most elaborate hearing was given, but this was on appeal after a series of hearings, of which I shall now tell you. Suit was first brought against the first infringer in the Middle West, and the district court held the patent valid and infringed. Favorable decision No. 1. Another infringement was found. This infringer was sued, resulting in favorable decision No. 2. The defendant appealed to the court of appeals of that circuit, which affirmed the lower court. Favorable decision No. 3. Parenthetically, I may say here that if we had had one central court of patent appeals, the validity of that patent would have been settled for the whole country. |