One lawyer who has looked over the bill calls my attention to the fact that the language in lines 3 to 6 on page 4 might furnish a loophole for a corporation which is doing the very thing which we want prohibited. Such a corporation, organized for the purpose of engaging in patent practice, might contend that the getting of patents for others was its own immediate affair. I therefore suggest that you consider canceling the lines 3 to 6 inclusive on page 4 of the bill and substituting the following: Nothing herein contained shall prohibit a corporation or association from employing an attorney or attorneys to practice before the United States Patent Office in connection with inventions which it, or organizations controlled by it. or in which it is financially interested, own or have a license under or the right to acquire ownership or a license, or prohibit a corporation so employing attorneys from doing work, without substantial profit, before the United States Patent Office for employees of such employing corporation or corporations controlled by it, or in which it is financially interested. May I take this occasion to congratulate you on your copyright bill? I am not an expert on copyright law, and have not studied it with great care, but from the examination which I have given it it seems to me by far the best copyright bill which I have ever seen. Very respectfully, ALBERT G. DAVIS, Hon. WILLIAM I. SIROVICH, WASHINGTON, D. C., March 16, 1932. Chairman House Committee on Patents. SIR: Since you introduced the bill (H. R. 9448) providing for a permanent force to classify patents, I have discussed the bill with a number of attorneys and we were all of the opinion that while the bill authorized the commissioner to appoint 35 additional examiners, it did not require him to make the appointment, and that the bill should be worded differently so that not less than 35 examiners shall be maintained in the classification division. The classification division requires experienced examiners, who can, after gaining their experience, be assigned to this division from the examining corps. Therefore, we have redrafted a form of bill, which has the approval of Commissioner Robertson, providing that not less than 35 examiners shall be maintained in the classification division and that in order to maintain this number in the classification division, without reducing the number of examiners engaged in the examination of patent applications, the commissioner is authorized to appoint 35 additional examiners and such additional clerks as may be necessary. Under this, 35 new examiners can be appointed to the examining corps, and 35 experienced examiners can be transferred from the examining corps to the classification division. I am handing you herewith the proposed bill, with a copy of the same, and suggest that it be introduced as a substitute for the present bill H. R. 9448. Respectfully, ROBERT WATSON. [H. R. 9448, Seventy-second Congress, first session] A BILL To provide a permanent force to classify patents, and so forth, in the Patent Office Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 2 of the act of June 10, 1898 (30 Stat. L. 440), be, and the same is hereby, amended to read as follows: "SEC. 2. That for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act, the Commissioner of Patents is hereby authorized and directed to maintain a classification division in the Patent Office, and, in addition to the examiner of classification and the two assistant chiefs now provided for by law, the commissioner is authorized to appoint in the manner now provided by law 35 additional examiners in professional grades 2 to 4, inclusive, whose time shall be devoted exclusively to the classification of patents, including questions of division, and such additional clerks to those now employed as he may deem necessary to maintain the efficiency of said division: Provided, however, That the annual expense of this additional force shall not exceed the sum of $125,000." A BILL To provide a permanent force to classify patents, and so forth, in the Patent Office Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 2 of the act of June 10, 1898 (30 Stat. L. 440), be, and the same is hereby, amended to read as follows: "SEC. 2. That for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act, the Commissioner of Patents is hereby authorized and directed to maintain a classification division in the Patent Office, and, in addition to the examiner of classification and the two assistant chiefs now provided for by law, the Commissioner of Patents is authorized and directed to maintain in said classification division not less than 35 examiners whose time shall be devoted exclusively to the classification of patents, including questions of division, and that for the purpose of maintaining the minimum number of examiners specified in this section in the classification division, without reducing the number of examiners engaged in the examination of patent applications, the Commissioner of Patents is authorized to appoint, in the manner now provided by law, 35 additional examiners in professional grades 2 to 4, inclusive, and such additional clerks to those now employed as he may deem necessary to maintain the efficiency of said classification division: Provided, however, That the annual expense of this additional force shall not exceed the sum of $125,000," Mr. ROBERT WATSON, Washington, D. C. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, DEAR MR. WATSON: I duly received your letter of February 29, which I have not answered before since I have been expecting every day to see you at some of the hearings. I have no objection to any form of bill which will make it mandatory on the commissioner to retain the 35 examiners exclusively on classification work, including questions of division. However, I prefer to have you refer the matter to Doctor Sirovich than do it myself. With best wishes, I am, Yours sincerely, THOMAS E. ROBERTSON, Commissioner. CHICAGO, April 1, 1932. Hon. WILLIAM I. SIROVICH, Committee on Patents, House of Representatives, Washington. D. C. MY DEAR DOCTOR SIROVICH: Not being able to attend the hearings of your committee on the 30th and 31st ultimo, I beg to submit the following brief comments on the several bills relating to patents, copies of which you sent me: H. R. 9448.-I believe this is a good bill and favor its passage provided the expense will be covered by moneys now available for Patent Office purposes. I am opposed to any further increase in Patent Office fees or any further appropriation for Patent Office purposes, because I believe the Patent Office is now spending more money than is necessary. H. R. 10152.-I believe this is a good bill so far as its substance is concerned and favor its passage. H. R. 10153.-I do not favor this bill. I believe it would be ineffective for the purpose for which it is intended, namely, forcing patents from the Patent Office and preventing their retention in the office for long periods of time to ensnare later workers in the art. I believe this ensnaring may be accomplished perfectly well under this bill by delaying the applications in the office as now, and simply having the patents run for shorter terms. An applicant can keep his application in the Patent Office 5, 8, 10 years or even longer and then take out a short-term patent with the objectionable ensnaring claims. Furthermore, I believe the bill is distinctly unfair, exempting only applica. tions where there have been interferences or appeals, whereas there are plenty of other delays not chargeable to the applicant which should lengthen the period beyond 20 years. Furthermore, the permitted extension of two years is wholly inadequate. Plenty of interferences run from 2 to 6 or 8 years or even longer without any fault at all on the part of any applicant party to the interference. Obviously two years extension would be inadequate to cover this. H. R. 10154.-I believe the substance of this bill is good and favor its passage. H. R. 10155.-I do not favor the passage of this bill. In so far as the bill proposes to abolish the renewing of patent applications after the expiration of six months' allowance period (sec. 2 of bill) I believe the bill to be good and favor that procedure. If this renewal after allowance is abolished in this way, naturally arrangement should be made to permit further prosecution of the application if desired, as is done now by a renewal application. But the first part of the bill, presumably section 1, does not seem to me to cover this at all satisfactorily. In the first place, the period of two months is introduced as an unnecessary limitation, and, in the next place and chiefly, the fee charged is excessive and seems to be absolutely inexplicable. Payment of $25 for the first claim submitted and $5 for each additional claim would make a fee of $120 for examining 20 claims, which in an original application are examined for the filing fee of $25. Since the application has already been examined and allowed there seems to be no reason for any such fee as this for subsequent examination. I respectfully submit that the desired result can be secured by repealing section 4897 as set forth in section 2 of this bill, and then providing for the renewal prosecution of the application by filing a petition to that effect at any time within the six months' allowance period and that this renewal prosecution be permitted for the fees now charged for an original application; that is, $25 for the first 20 claims and $1 per claim thereafter, provided that this renewal prosecution shall be necessary only where claims presented during the six months' allowance period require further examination and that claims requiring no such examination be permitted entry by amendment as they are now under Patent Office Rule 78. H. R. 10156.—I do not favor the passage of this bill for it seems to me to be entirely unnecessary and likely to work a hardship in many cases. 66 H. R. 10157.-I do not favor this bill as I am unable to see any benefit from it. The bill provides that the commissioner may "order certain applications pending more than three years to be placed in condition for allowance or appeal within any fixed time (p. 3, lines 13-15). Thus there is no obligation on the commissioner to apply the 3-year rule to any application in the Patent Office. It simply permits him to do it if he so desires but even then gives him the discretion of applying it to any one or more applications and not to others, thereby permitting discrimination and selection without any basis. Furthermore, the rule might be applied, if the bill goes into a law, to applications which have been three years in the office without any fault or delay of the applicant. The bill would not compel any appreciable advancement of applications in the Patent Office because the 3-year rule is not to be applied generally to applications; and, furthermore, if it were they would not be materially speeded because even after final rejection or appeal, some years might readily elapse because of subsequent proceedings before they would issue as patents. It is unfortunate these bills all deal with details and not with essentials, and would be of no special benefit even if passed to laws. We need substantial and basic changes. It is perfectly apparent that our patent system as now conducted is fundamentally unsound and almost impossible. The article entitled "Patent Injustice in the January, 1932 World's Work, reflects this and expresses views which are fully justified and very generally held. Such being the case, why do we continue indefinitely with such a system? Why not exercise the intelligence for which we as a Nation are noted and secure a first-class, practical, workable system, as we can do readily enough if we make up our minds and then do it. With this in view I respectfully suggest the following with reference to the Patent Office: (1) Either make it a mere registration bureau, like our Copyright Bureau, so that patent applications become patents merely by registration, as they do in many foreign countries, such as France, Belgium, Italy, etc. This will abolish practically all the working force of the Patent Office, leaving merely a registrar and a few clerks to apply numbers and dates to the patents registered and the classification division to receive and classify patents. The whole system will be greatly simplified and the enormous burden of expense, worry, and delay will be lifted from everyone-the Government, the public, and the inventors and applicants. The applicants or attorneys can make their searches and then prepare and file their specifications and claims. The patents will issue at once, they will be much better patents than are issued now, the Patent Office and attorneys' fees can be one-half of what they are now or even less, the public will immediately know what the patents are, and patentees may immediately begin operations under their patents, and we will have a simple, practical, efficient, inexpensive, and workable system. (2) Or modify the Patent Office procedure so that the office will simply make searches and issue patents with claims for new and useful statutory subject matter, thereby eliminating the interminable wrangling about whether or not "invention" is involved, provided that patents must issue within three years of their filing dates. This would overcome practically all of the troubles of the present time and be preferable in many ways to the aforesaid registration plan. Under date of February 25, 1932, I wrote you a letter outlining a bill of this kind. No acknowledgment of the letter has been received, nor any indication of whether the plan is being considered. Very truly yours, AMB: GA. A. MILLER BEDFIELD HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C., April 7, 1932. Hon. W. I. SIROVICH, Chairman Patents Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR DOCTOR: The inclosed letter will be of interest to you. If hearings have not yet been printed, and if such action meets with your approval, I would like to have the letter incorporated in the hearings. With good wishes, I am, Very sincerely yours, PAUL JOHN KVALE. Hon. PAUL J. KVALE, M. & M. WIRE CLAMP Co., Minneapolis, Minn., March 8, 1932. House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: My attention has just been called to the House Committee on Patents stating that this committee is now working on new legislation covering the patent laws and their revision and also this committee is now having public hearings at Washington. I am not able to appear at any of these hearings, but as a manufacturer and inventor who has taken out 13 patents and has several patents pending, I am naturally interested in any revisions that are contemplated. A few suggestions in this letter may be of interest to this committee. I have had very little experience litigating patents, although I am now litigating one patent. I have among my acquaintances a considerable number cf friends who are inventors and in talking with them, I find that the great trouble in litigating a patent is due to the fact that the judges are not qualified to absorb the technical features of mechanical devices unless these features are very simple. This is not my opinion but the opinion of parties I referred to above. In this connection, I would suggest that there should be a special court or special judges for the litigation of patents, and the judges thereof should be trained to be familiar with the operation of mechanical devices as well as persons having legal training, so they can intelligently, with their experience, make a decision with a full understanding of the mechanical questions involved. The present-day expense of litigating a patent is so large that unless a man or a company is very well fixed financially, he hesitates litigating his patent. Attorney's fees, court expenses, trial expenses, are so large that probably the litigation of any single patent involves an expense of two to ten thousand dollars. This is due to the fact that most of the cases are tried away from the seat of business involving considerable travelling expenses to both sides. The attorney's fees are necessarily considerable and run into figures which are appalling from the standpoint of a small business man. My suggestion of a new set-up in the present courts for litigating patents also involves an additional suggestion regarding the length of time consumed under present-day methods of litigating patents. The Federal courts are now jammed with bootlegging cases, criminal cases, and the regular run of Federal cases. With this set-up it requires over a year before the attorneys can agree on a certain time for the trial. This is many times prolonged and delayed and before a case can be tried in the courts under present-day methods it would require from one to three years. In the meantime, therefore, before an inventor of ordinary means would be able to litigate his patent he would either be tired out with the delay or financially unable to pursue his case further. I am, therefore, of the opinion that if patent litigation is going to stay in the present courts, it should be given what is known in railroading as the "red ball" and rushed through to an early decision. In other words, patent litigation should be shown some preference and should not be subject to the many delays that are under present conditions forced upon it. It is for these reasons that I suggest what might be called a travelling patent court and central points could be established where hearings of this combined court could be held. Bear in mind that in making this suggestion that I am not criticizing or belittling our judges that are now on the Federal bench trying these cases, but I am looking at the entire matter from a business standpoint. I sincerely believe that our present judicial set-up is the most honest part of the Government we have to-day and these men are absolutely honest in their convictions. Nevertheless, the fact remains that there is an opportunity to assist business by establishing some set-up as suggested. I hope something may be worked out whereby patent litigation may be simplified and the expense to business reduced. It always has been my understanding that the Patent Office has been one of the paying departments of the Government. This being the case, it seems reasonable that a patent examiner should be paid a compensation in line with his calling as I hear that many men in the Patent Office who are highly capable of performing their duties and have made a study of this work are now underpaid and are leaving the employment of the Government in large numbers, for private business. While considering this angle, I would suggest that a merit system of some character be set up as a pay schedule for competent patent examiners. Of course, the time consumed in obtaining patents is very great. An application is not acted on for about six months after being filed and for about the same length of time after each response by the applicant. It seems to me that the Patent Office tries too hard to reject everything. Many things are cited which really have nothing to do with the device on which a patent is sought. If the unnecessary rejections could be eliminated, the work of the Patent Office would be greatly reduced. In this connection I am not criticising the Patent Office on account of the delay in issuing patents because they are shorthanded. The six months times given the inventor to reply to an official action is a good thing. I sincerely trust that in covering this subject I have made a few suggestions that may be taken into consideration with your findings. If you have any questions which you may want answered, I would be very pleased to do so, and I hope that the information in this letter may give you the reaction of an individual inventor which is not biased in any manner by political or patentlawyer judgment. I remain, very truly yours, M & M WIRE CLAMP Co., HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE, Washington, D. C., April 6, 1932. Hon. WILLIAM I. SIROVICH, Chairman Committee on Patents, House of Representatives. DEAR COLLEAGUE: There will be inclosed a most interesting letter from a resident of my State which refers to certain difficulties in a matter of accepting applications for patents. I know you will be glad to give it your close attention and perhaps to in corporate the message in appropriate committee hearings. With kind regards, I am, Very sincerely yours, PAUL JOHN KVALE. |