Prototype

“ Anyone who wants to be a successful inventor, needs to know a great many things – in the most diverse fields. For if a new invention is a combination of earlier inventions, then the inventor’s mind is the ground on which, for the first time, various seemingly unrelated things combine. Example: The steam engine combines the kettle for cooking Rumford’s Soup, the pump, and the spinning wheel – if the first inventor had not been familiar with these objects, if he had not combined them in his mind, would we have had steam engines? ”

“ Another wonder is now promised us—an invention purely mechanical in its nature, by means of which words spoken by the human voice can be, so to speak, stored up and reproduced at will over and over again hundreds, it may be thousands, of times. What will be thought of a piece of mechanism by means of which a message of any length can be spoken on to a plate of metal—that plate sent by post to any part of the world and the message absolutely respoken in the very voice of the sender, purely by mechanical agency? ”

“ And however carefully you have worked out your invention on paper you will find that when you come to make a model, or have one made, you will have to change it not once but many times, that is if it is a machine in which a number of parts are made use of and you may have to re-design it and re-construct it several times. ”

“ The drawings are done, and the builders' contract is ready to sign; but we want you to look over the drawings, to see if there are any practical suggestions you can make. Then stay in the shops, and see that the work is done right. The inventor is not a practical man; help him if you can, for experience tells us that ten things fail because of bad design where one does because of bad manipulation. Come up into the drawing-room, and I will introduce you to the inventor.'
"Up under the skylight I met the designer of the new engine, a mild little fellow—but he don't figure in this story. ”

“ Ways to Make a Model.—The way in which you get your model made depends on several things and over these you will have little or no control.
There are two ways for you to get a model made of your invention and these are (1) to make it yourself and (2) to have a model maker make it for you.
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These two general ways may be further divided into several sub-ways and among these are (a) for you to have your own workshop, or laboratory and hire machinists, or electricians, or chemists, and have them do the work under your direction ”

“ Inventors of machines are required, before they receive a patent, to deliver a written description of their inventions, and of the manner and process of making, constructing, and using the same, in such 'full, clear, and exact terms' as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to make, construct, and use the same, and fully to explain the principle by which the invention may be distinguished from others of like kind; and they are also required to specify and point out the part, improvement, or combination which they claim as their invention. ”

“ I have not a few instances in which the independence of the two faculties is emphatically commented upon; and I have at least one clear case where great interest in outlines and accurate apprehension of straightness, squareness, and the like, is unaccompanied by the power of visualizing.”
A new instrument, machine or engine is imagined by its creator long before it takes actual form; everything he sees that will be of help he builds at once into his design, everything else, however interesting in itself, he passes with a heedless eye. ”

“ I know of several instances where patents on modifications of design have been granted, which modifications have been in common use for several years by others, but were only considered as a design and not as an invention. Then some designer hits on the same arrangement and considers he has made an invention, and applies for and takes out a patent which has already been in common use but has been looked upon purely as a design by its originator rather than an invention. ”

“ It is very curious and interesting, in tracing the progress of an invention, to observe the different phases through which it has passed, before it has been brought into the state in which it is ultimately applied. It not unfrequently happens that the original purpose sinks into insignificance, and is almost lost sight of, as the invention becomes more fully developed. Other objects, that were not perceived, or were considered altogether impracticable, present themselves, and are then pursued; and the invention, when perfected, is very different from its original design. ”

“ In deciding upon the construction of models and the development of an idea, the proper mechanical movements should always be very carefully taken into consideration. In other words, movements which simplify the invention, minimize friction, and add power, are always to be preferred to clumsy and inefficient means or methods. Every inventor, and all students of the mechanical arts and sciences, should arrange any mechanism which they may desire to produce with the least number of parts possible, and embracing the greatest amount of simplicity of action. ”

“ On the other hand when you have finished your model to the point where it will do the work you want it to do you are in a position then to make a new and accurate set of drawings, to write a clear description of how the machine works and to draw up your claims with the certainty of knowing just what you have and what you want to ask for—in a word you are ready to do business with the patent office. ”

“ The said petitioner and inventor also, being perfectly convinced, as a practical man, that a model of his inventions and improvements will convey and preserve the most exact and [Pg 22] durable impressions of the matters to which he lays claim, he sends herewith a model of the due form and proportion of each, as a just exhibition of his principle and of its application to the construction and improvement of the Plough, requesting that the same may be kept in the Patent Office, as a perpetual memorial of the invention and its use. ”

“ 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. ”

“ More frequently, however, inventions are not entirely new, but modifications of contrivances previously known, though to a few, and not yet brought into practical use. Glancing back over the history of mechanism, we occasionally see an invention seemingly full born, when suddenly it drops out of sight, and we hear no more of it for centuries. It is taken up de novo by some inventor, stimulated by the needs of his time, and falling again upon the track, he recovers the old footmarks, follows them up, and completes the work. ”

“ WHY SPECIALLY-DESIGNED FORMS IMPROVE NATURAL STRUCTURES.—The reason for this is, primarily, that the inventor must design the article for its special work, and in doing so makes it better adapted to do that particular thing. The hands and fingers can do a multiplicity of things, but it cannot do any particular work with the facility or the degree of perfection that is possible with the machine made for that purpose. ”

“ Working Models.—A working model may be a scale model as you have seen or it may be a full sized machine or of any size between these limits.
When you have your invention past the drawing board and up to the shop bench by all means make a working model of it and if possible make it full size. This kind of a model is the proof you want that your invention will work when it is put to the test and by making a working model you will find lots of changes little and big that are needed and which when made will improve its operation wonderfully. ”

“ Experiment, as an educated passion for building on original lines. Then, in the mechanical field, we bestow a few glances at self-acting machines, at the simplicity of design which makes for economy not only in building, but in operation and maintenance. Either in designing a new machine, or in reaching a great truth, such as Universal Development, there is scope for Imagination upon [3] which we next pause for a moment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A ROUGH MODEL OF AN ELECTRIC MOTOR DRIVE FOR A LOCOMOTIVE Rough Models.—After you have made the drawings and experiments which your invention calls for and both have worked out to your satisfaction you will then have a burning desire to see the result of your efforts in a more substantial form.
Some machines in which there are only a few moving parts need not be built up very carefully, or to exact scale or even of the materials the marketable [93] product is to have in it. Very often a model can be made of wood and scrap metals that will do and show everything that you want it to. See Fig. ”

“ Every inventor supposes that he has a fortune in every conception that he puts into wood and iron. Stealing tremblingly and furtively up the steps of the Patent Office, with his model concealed under his coat, lest some sharper shall see it and rob him of his darling thought, he hopes to come down those steps with the precious parchment that shall insure him a present competency and enrich his children. ”

“ The law requires that the inventor shall deliver a model of his invention or improvement when the same admits of a model. The model should he neatly made, and as small as a distinct representation of the machine or improvement, and its characteristic properties, will admit ”

“ Good and careful invention and designing by making the mechanical contrivance as nearly basic as the circumstances will permit, and to design and invent contrivances for the same purpose in as many other ways from the one to be used as possible, and by patenting the same, making it harder for anybody else to get around it. ”

“ While the legislator is horrified at the thought of innovation, the inventor, the discoverer, and the artisan are electrified by the discovery of a new principle in physics, and delighted at its application in a new invention, and its practical operation in a new and useful machine. ”

“ The use of an invention by the inventor himself, or of any other person under his direction, by way of experiment, and in order to bring the invention to perfection, has never been regarded as such a use. ”

“ The early filing of an application may turn out to be important in securing to the inventor his right of priority. When the inventor comes to exhibit his invention, with the idea of bringing it to the attention of the public in general, there is no question that he should then have his invention in the best form he can, and in as attractive shape as possible. ”

“ Invention, then, of the highest kind must be composed of four qualities—imagination, to conceive a new and complicated machine; knowledge, to gather materials; judgment, to select and combine them; and perseverance without wearying till the truth be obtained. Those things which commonly go by the name of new inventions are very often mere modifications of what has been done before. “Improvements” is the technical term applied to them. ”

“ The strangest point about the materialistic or mechanistic conception of things is that every machine without exception has an inherent purpose and design. It is intended by its inventor to do certain definite things in a certain definite way. If an animal, therefore, is a machine, it must have a design and purpose, and presumably a designer. ”

“ To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe [one practical means in which I have embodied it with great sucess; but, in doing so, I do not wish to be understood as limiting myself to these mechanical devices in themselves, as the principle may be embodied in various other means and still not depart from the discovery embodied in machinery that I desire to patent.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is plainly Design. But the arm of man and the wing of the sparrow correspond to each other in the most exact manner, bone for bone. Where is the Use or the Purpose of this correspondence? If it be said that there may be a purpose though we do not see it, that is granted. But Final Causes for us are contrivances of which we see the end; and nothing is added to the evidence of Design by the perception of a unity of plan which in no way tends to promote the design. ”