Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1883 — PATENTS. [ARTICLE]

PATENTS.

Commissioner Marble's Report for the Year Ended June 30. The Business of the Office—Recommendatlons to Congress. [Washington Dispatch.] The Commissioner of Patents has submitted his report for the fiscal year, ended June 30,1883. It shows the following facts: APviacAnoxs. For patents 32,845 For dedgn patents 1,099 For reissue patents For registration ol trade mark 5........ 854 For registration of labels “48 Total 36,734 Total in 1832... '....k. 30,062 Caveats filed 9.688 PATENTS AND TRADE-MXKKB ISSUED. Patents granted, including reissues and t designs J....... tM* Trade-matks registered Labels registered t 618 Total 22,688 Patents withheld for non-payment of final fees 2,058 Patents expired 7.471 BECEU-TS AND EXPENSES. Receipts from all sources ... Expenditures tnot including printing). 677,628 Surplus 518,255 Increase in receipts over 1881.......... 805,989 Increase over 1882........ .............. 165,020 The number of applications awaiting action on the part of the office July 1 was 4,899, an increase of 89 per cent, over laest The Commissioner rays the business of the office is steadily anderapidly increasing in each of the divisions of the office The success of the patent system, the Commissioner says,ia due largely to its liberality to inventors and the security and protection it affords them. It was not intended that revenue to the Government should be obtained by charges made for vesting in the inventor the right and title for a limited time to the exclusive use of his invention. But not only have the fees received qn applications filed been sufficient to pay all the expense’s of the office, but a large surplus—nearly 32,5C0,(XX>—now stand to the credit of the office in the Treasury. Greater liberality might, perhaps, be extended to the inventor by reducing the fee to be paid before a patent can issue, and with beneficial results. Certainly a more equitable rate of fees could be adopted than is now provided by graduating the fee to the character and nature of the invention. The fees now required in some cases are excessive and in others exceedingly small In this way, rather than by an indiscriminate reduction in the fees now charged, as is urged by some, justice would be secured, and the office still be self-supporting. Attention is called to the fact that a large number of Examiners and Assistant Examiners have resigned during the last yean The Commissioner assigns as the principal reason for these resignations the insufficiency of the salaries allowed, and says the office feels the loss of such experienced men more than any other bureau. He adds: “The same reason, substantially, .which requires an increase in the force of the offices in order that the work may be promptly and efficiently done, exist for urging proper salaries for securing the most efficient men for doing this class of work.” Tift report recommends thac Congress confer upon the Commissioner authority to institute proceedings to determine the question of the public use or sale of an invention. The tention of Congress is again called to the necessity for amending the statutes relating to the issue of foreign patents, either by granting the patent for a definite term, where the invention has first been patented In a foreign country or countries without any conditions subsequent, or by granting it for the full term ot seventeen years from the date of the earliest foreign patent