Brevet

“ Five departments are entirely devoted to experiments carried out by a corps of inventors working with a special body of skilled mechanics. New patents accrue so fast as a result of this organised research that the National Company now owns 537 letters patent in the United States and 394 in foreign countries. ”

“ Because the patent office will not accept your drawings unless they conform exactly to certain rules; your specification, which means the description of your invention, must be written in a certain way, and the claims, which are the very vitals of the whole patent, must be drawn with exceeding care for while nothing of value must be left out it is even worse to write in too much as this limits your claims. ”

“ The original conception and working out of an invention is usually a labor of love on the part of the inventor: having perfected his invention in every detail, he finds able and skilled counsel waiting to prepare and prosecute his application for patent before the Patent Office Examiner. When the patent is allowed or issued, the patentee's real work begins—that of turning the patent into money. This is the business end of the inventor's work, which is generally to his interest financially to undertake himself, or to have under his immediate supervision. ”

“ You have not got anything positive as yet to get a patent on—the fact is you only think you have something—but your judgment may not be the very best on the subject for your own good. Take your sketches and your specifications and consult a competent, reputable engineer, and he will tell you what are the prospects and probabilities of your invention. If your invention is a valuable one, engage his services to re-design it for you, and to make it practical. Don't think that because you are an inventor you are necessarily a "natural born engineer." ”

“ If the invention is a meritorious one there will be more than one of the manufacturers to whom the patentee may write, who will become interested, and when such a state exists, the patentee can begin to be more exacting as to his demands since competition has been created between the manufacturers. ”

“ See the number of patents, many of which are good, lying in the files at the Patent Office,—neglected and forgotten by everybody except the examiner, who persistently uses them as ammunition against the real benefactor of mankind who, though subsequent, would like to do something with them.
Before my early entrance into the arena of invention, I had a suspicion that some of the work of benefiting mankind, if so high a title be justifiable, consisted in getting an invention into practical and useful form for general use. ”

“ An inventor must describe what he conceives to be the best mode, but he is not confined to that. If this were not so most patents would be of little worth. 'The principle of the invention is a unit, and invariable; the modes of its embodiment in the concrete invention may be numerous and in appearance very different from each other.' 2 Robinson, Patents, § 485. The invention, of course, must be described and the mode of putting it to practical use, but the claims measure the invention. ”

“ To the inventor it is invaluable, as every number contains a complete list of all patents and trade-marks issued weekly from the Patent Office. It promotes Industry, Progress, Thrift and Intelligence in every community where it circulates. ”

“ If the inventor is in the employ of a company manufacturing goods, to which his invention is a valuable addition, the company simply "takes it," and applies for a patent on the same, as being the original inventor. In most cases the inventor is not even informed of the patent application, and generally some high official in the company's employ claims and gets the credit and reward for inventing it. ”

“ However unacquainted he may be in a business way, every patentee can, more or less, in his immediate neighborhood, consult with merchants, friends, and others in the line of his invention, who can post him upon the right parties to submit the patent to, and the best way to see them about it, and perhaps go with him to visit such as might be interested in the invention. ”

“ It is not easy to give a precise definition of what is meant by the term 'art,' as used in the acts of Congress-some, if not all, the traits which distinguish an art from the other legitimate subjects of a patent, are stated with clearness and accuracy by Mr. Curtis, in his Treatise on Patents. 'The term art, applies,' says he, 'to all those cases where the application of a principle is the most important part of the invention, and where the machinery, apparatus, or other means, by which the principle is applied, are incidental only and not of the essence of his invention. ”

“ These are ordinary cases of minor inventions embracing no very considerable inventive powers and of which hundreds go out from the Patent Office every year. Experience shows that the most profitable patents are those which contain very little real invention, and are to a superficial observer of little value. ”

“ Where a person has discovered a new and useful principle in a machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, he may employ other persons to assist in carrying out that principle, and if they, in the course of experiments arising from that employment, make discoveries ancillary to the plan and preconceived design of the employer, such suggested improvements are in general to be regarded as the property of the party who discovered the original principle, and they may be embodied in his patent as part of his invention. ”

“ The application for patent, and filing of carefully drawn specification and claims, is, of course, highly important and necessary, but it should not be undertaken until after the most searching, practical tests of the invention, as well as the most careful investigation as to the public demand for your idea, as it is from the latter source that profits will come. ”

“ The numerous inquiries from patentees seeking practical, reliable, and up-to-date information as to the best and most successful methods of realizing from the product of their ingenuity, has led the author, after due deliberation, to prepare and present this work to the American inventor, with a view of supplying a long-felt want, with the hope that it will save them many expensive experiments in handling their patents, and advance them on the road to success. ”

“ Our Acts of Parliament for granting patents to first inventors for fourteen years is a sufficient acknowledgment of the due regard which ought to be had to such as find out anything which may be of public advantage; new discoveries in trade, in arts and mysteries, of manufacturing goods, or improvement of land, are without question of as great benefit as any discoveries made in the works of nature by all the academies and royal societies in the world. ”

“ This plan is preferred by many inventors to filing a caveat. Such a record will be found very valuable in case of an infringement, as it enables the inventor to ascertain the various steps of his invention, and is a sort of evidence that cannot be impeached. Such a record of a complicated invention, when the inventor has put much time and study upon the subject in perfecting it, will also be found valuable in effecting sales, and in fixing the price of the patent. ”

“ As soon as your experiments are completed or your model is finished so that you know exactly what you want to claim as being strictly new and novel and original with you, then you are in shape to hire a patent attorney to draw up your patent application and file it and don’t do the latter a moment before. ”

“ After your engineer has incorporated your invented idea in a suitable body, try to get your protection in the Patent Office on the form in which you intend utilizing your idea. No patents are granted on ideas. ”

“ A new mode of operating or a new composition to produce better results is the daily ground for a patent. All which the act of Congress itself requires is that the invention be for 'any new and useful improvement on any art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter,' &c. ”

“ The effort is made through a circular letter addressed to the thousands of patent attorneys throughout the country, who come in contact often with inventors as their clients, to popular and influential newspapers, to conspicuous citizens of both races, and to the owners of large manufacturing industries where skilled mechanics of both races are employed, all of whom are asked to report what they happen to know on the subject under inquiry. ”

“ New light breaking in upon the patentee as the progress of improvement goes on, and as other inventors enter the field, and his monopoly becomes less and less necessary to the public, might easily generate in his mind an idea that his invention was really more broad and comprehensive than had been set forth in the specification of his patent. ”

“ There is another class of patents that can be best realized from by organizing the proper kind of joint stock companies, and manufacturing the invention, the inventor taking a certain amount of the stock and assigning the patent to the company. ”

“ Here a poor but earnest learner may explore a volume which cost more than a small farm in Illinois, and transfer the whole harvest of its wisdom into his own stock of knowledge. Here an inventive mind may run through the whole forest of Patents, Improvements, and Mechanical Suggestions which a century of the world's best genius has produced. As an illustration of the richness of this special department, so valuable to this great mechanical community, the fact may suffice, that it contains 2,030 Specifications of Patents. The whole number of volumes in the Reference Library is 18,225. ”

“ To what liberality of construction these claims are entitled depends, to a certain extent, upon the character of the invention, and whether it is what is termed, in ordinary parlance, a 'pioneer.' This word, although used somewhat loosely, is commonly understood to denote a patent covering a function never before performed, a wholly novel device, or one of such novelty and importance as to mark a distinct step in the progress of the art, as distinguished from a mere improvement or perfection of what had gone before. ”

“ Undoubtedly, the best and most practical method of ascertaining the value of any invention which is susceptible of being manufactured on a small scale is to have a limited quantity of the articles manufactured—say five hundred or a thousand—and try the experiment of introducing them in a small territory; that is, in a certain county, city, or town, taking great precaution in selecting a person who is capable of carrying forward the business in a business-like manner. ”

“ Many of the trade journals and other periodicals are also open to receive technical descriptions of inventions of merit concerning industrial improvements. Such articles should be written in good form, containing not over five hundred or a thousand words, and if admitted to this class of publications will be of the utmost value and importance in creating favorable public opinion, and in advancing the inventor's interests. ”

“ He should if possible get a person who has had experience in the line of the invention, as such a person would likely understand it and the trade better than others. It is not really necessary that he should have had experience in selling patents; if he is a good talker, knows how to approach business men, and thoroughly understands the invention, he will probably make money for the inventor and himself. ”

“ If we are to judge of the ability and competency of the examiners of models and drafts by the patents issued for almost all conceivable articles, we must conclude that the only qualifications they possess are to receive the fees, and recommend the issuing of letters patent. ”

“ Improvements in the manufacture of paper have often been made, and it may be that the discovery at that period of the constituents for making such paper or of the process by which paper possessing the described properties could be produced would have been the proper subject of a patent. ”

“ Independence through Successful Invention.
There are thousands of patents sold outright every year by the patentees of the United States for thousands of dollars; and, to the already long list of successful inventors, each year adds many more, who have become independent through the proper handling of the product of their ingenuity. ”

“ And so after you have thought out your invention and have made drawings of it the next step is not to apply for a patent as most patent attorneys will advise to do, or to have a model made as many model makers will tell you to do but to look up the state of the art and see where you are at. ”

“ An examination of many articles on which letters patent have been issued, coupled with the attempt to use them, discloses the fact that the invention, if it ever could be of any particular value, required further improvement to make it of such value, and that letters patent had been issued for an undeveloped theory. ”