Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1882 — PATENT OFFICE. [ARTICLE]

PATENT OFFICE.

Annual Report of the Commissioners. Commissioner Marble, of the Patent Office, has submitted his annual report to the Secretary of the Interior. During the past fiscal year, 30,062 applications for patents, registration of trade-marks, labels, and reissue patents were received. Of these 17,713 patents were granted and 1,709 trade-marks registered. The total receipts of the office from all sources W'ie $930,864, and the ex' penditures $651,719, leaving a Sumins o’ $ 79,144. The Commissioner calls attentior. to the section of the Revised Statutes which provides that “every patent granted for an invention which has been previously patented in a foreign country shall be so limited as to expire at the same time with the foreign patent, and to the fact that uncertainty exists as to the term of foreign patents, because of tho conditions on which they are issued. The report says: “In my opinion the terms of patents issued by this office should not be rendered uncertain by the operation of the laws of any foreign country nor by the failure of the patentees or their assignees to do what such law requires. In view of the fact that the terms for which patents may be granted in foreign countries are shorter than for which they may be originally granted in this country, I think that twelve years would be a proper term for patents where the invention has first been patented or patent applied for in a foreign country, and that the applicant should file his application within two years after the issuance of such patent or application therefor. Attention is also directed to a decision of the Supreme Court of the District that the Commissioner of Patents has no discretion in the registration of labels, but if an applicant comes with a trade-mark, calls it a label, and asks for its registration and pays the fees required by law for the registration of a label, it is the duty of the Commissioner to cause it to be registered. The Commissioner says, if the decision of the court is to be followed, legislation should be had which will remove every question of doubt in relation to such registration.