Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

What Can Be Patented? By ROGER SHERMAN HOAR, A.B., M.A., LL.B. Former Assistant Attorney General of Massachusetts Drawings by THOMAS E. MONROE NOT every bright idea is patentable, and not every patentable idea can be made use of by its originator. Without any further introduction, let us roll up our sleeves and plunge right into the following welter of words: U. S. Revised Statutes, Title LX, Sec. 4886. Any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvements thereof not known or used by others in this country before his invention or discovery thereof, and not patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country before his invention or discovery thereof, or more than two years prior to his application, and not in public use or on sale in this country for more than two years prior to his application, unless the same is proved to have been abandoned, may, upon payment of the fees required by law, and other due proceeding had, obtain a patent therefor. That is a mouthful, to chew and digest ! But the present chapter will undertake that task. Let us start with a few definitions. An "art" means some distinct method or process. The word "machine" requires no defining. A "composition of matter" consists in the uniting of two or more ingredients, either chemically or physically, to produce a new and homogeneous mass. A "manufacture" is anything, made by man, which is not a machine, a composition of matter, or a design. The invention must be new and useful. Novelty consists in the invention not having been used by others in the United States, orpatented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country. Yet prior knowledge or use abroad, unknown to the inventor, does not prevent the invention from being "new," even if such foreign use was known in this country. This shows that, in spite of the language of the above-quoted statute, prior knowledge in this country does not prevent novelty; and we shall see later in this article that even prior invention in this country is not necessarily fatal. An invention is "useful," if operable, and if not frivolous, nor injurious to morals, health or good order. The Patent Office has an interesting policy with respect to perpetual-motion machines, which of course are not operable, and hence are not useful, and hence are not patentable. Unfortunately it is impossible, by mere argument, to convince the inventor of perpetual motion that he is on the wrong track. So the Patent Office adds a little inducement to its argument, by sending a personal letter to the poor deluded scientist, offering him his choice of a rejection if he persists, or a return of his filing fee if he will be so good as to withdraw his application. This usually works. Yet many ideas as weird and wild as perpetual motion are permitted to be patented. I know of one leading patent attorney who has a much-prized collection of some two hundred freak patents of this sort. If you wish some light humorous reading, I suggest that you look at the Official Gazette of the Patent Office each week at your Public Library, or subscribe to it at five dollars a year from the Public Printer, Washington, D. C. In the first place, this magazine is, next to the Congressional Record, the leading funny-paper of America. In the second place, it will enable you to keep in touch with the progress which is being made in your own particular line. Some member of every engineering department should certainly be assigned the very entertaining job of reading the "O. G.," which very name is symbolic of the surprised joy he will experience. But although the examiners of the Patent Office are too busy to head -off the scores of absolutely absurd and unworkable devices which issue every year, yet they occasionally balance the record by rejecting some perfectly workable one. " If this be treason, make the most of it," as Patrick Henry once said. For example, a certain aiming device for big guns, which was developed during the late War, was thrice turned down by them with much sarcastic comment, in spite of the fact that it had been tested and approved by the