I am entirely in favor of the substitute that Mr. Davis has proposed for section 973, Revised Statutes, as a rule, disclaim, disclaiming, and claim. I will not try to change it; if you want to change it it should be made by rules.

Mr. Davis, as I understand, made a suggestion to you in an objection at length. The objection, as I see it, allows an assignee to file an application on oath of the inventor and prior application is filed, the proposal disclosed.

The CHAIRMAN. The bill as introduced is exactly as the American Bar Association handed it to the committee. This is their bill; if you want to amend it, we can do that.

Mr. NEAVE. My objection is there is a great deal disclaimed when the inventor has to prove the background; if he is smart, he can prove what he has in it, but when he makes a claim he has to give the proof.

The CHAIRMAN. He ought to be put on oath if he is not.

Mr. NEAVE. That is perfectly true; the assignee ought not make that oath; the claimer must make it, and he must make oath to the claim. He always makes oath to the supposition; it is necessarily something more. I do not think where an inventor has not sworn to a particular claim as being his invention, the assignee ought to swear to it. It puts the assignee in a much better position than the position he was in formerly.

In the Sirovich bill, H. R. 10153, said bill to limit the life of a patent to a term commencing with the date of the application, if an applicant is to delay he must pay damage. The only question that has arisen in mind is as to whether this bill as drawn is operative, whether the delays are charged to the inventor or to other people.

The CHAIRMAN. If it is charged to other people's delays, the court has discretionary power for two years; if we think we can help him, we might give him another year; that gives him three years.

It is eminently fair to give a man 20 to 23 years from the time of the application.

Mr. NEAVE. The Patent Office can not at once respond to an application when filed. They are overworked and so forth. Those delays, the commissioner has said, run into seven months.

The CHAIRMAN. They are coming down, and if we give the commissioner the additional service, he might bring it down to 60 or 90 days.

Mr. DIES. Would not three years encumber the Patent Office with delays?

Mr. NEAVE. I do not think it is intended, except to involve foreign relations or appeals; that is, from statements made here, delay should not be charged to the applicant. The general average would not be

taken care of.

The CHAIRMAN. What would be; a year and a half, you state? Mr. NEAVE. No more than your bill would give them the 3-year period, but most applications are run through in quicker time than that.

Maybe I misunderstood the bill. When I saw the bill, it provided a man might have 3 years beyond the 17.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right?

GENERAL REVISION AND AMENDMENT OF PATENT LAW 25

Mr. NEAVE. That is true.

The CHAIRMAN. And that would take care of the Patent Office. Mr. NEAVE. And we could do a great deal more, not through his interference, but the court has a right to have two additional years added.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know any man I love more than Karl Fenning. In order that no mistake may be made I had Mr. Fenning draft that bill. Is that right, Mr. Fenning?

Mr. FENNING. That is right.

Mr. DIES. If an applicant will not do anything to forward his application to patent issue in 20 years we ought do something to make him do it.

The CHAIRMAN. You are doing something.

Mr. NEAVE. You are doing something in your bill to abolish the renewals.

Mr. FENNING. This bill introduced as H. R. 10153 is in the words which were formulated by the committee of the American Bar Association, and as I understand it was submitted to the American. Bar Association at Atlantic City.

The CHAIRMAN. Identically?

Mr. FENNING. Yes, sir; but with the addition of reference to extension by a court as suggested by you.

The CHAIRMAN. You are right.

Mr. NEAVE. It was not approved by any bar association?

The CHAIRMAN. And for your benefit, Mr. Neave, I had cooperating Mr. Spencer with me at the time in the preparation of this bill, so you see the committee availed itself of the ablest assistance.

Mr. NEAVE. That is all. We just do not want to charge to the inventor the delays of some one else. I think you ought to have a little different aspect in mind. I haven't any hesitancy in saying to do better possibly.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to ask you a personal question: You represent the largest corporate interests in America: American Telephone & Telegraph Co., General Electric Co., Standard Oil Co., and United States Steel Corporation, almost every corporate interest. Would they be opposed to this bill?

Mr. NEAVE. NO; I have heard no opposition on their part.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I want to bring out. Fritz Subelman-if you will read through the history of his application you will feel sorry for him as to what he had to do with his application. He prosecuted that application himself until he became ill, and that was the reason for his 36 years' application remaining in the Patent Office, because he was a very poor sick man. This bill, if it were to affect anyone, it is the poor man adversely.

Mr. NEAVE. I do not think we are protecting the poor man when we have about 20 years' applications in the Patent Office, of which I think we ought to have enough.

Mr. SWANK. These inventors are very queer people.

Mr. DIES. Nearly every one is queer.

Mr. GOODWIN. I do think you ought be very careful, the rich man can to-morrow become the poor man and vice versa; that is the only warning.

Mr. NEAVE. I do not know whether Congressman Goodwin's bill is here or not, H. R. 10155, to abolish the statute permitting renewal of patent applications.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you want to be recorded as opposed to this bill before the House?

Mr. NEAVE. Yes, sir; I do not understand it.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Neave, for coming here to Washington.

The CHAIRMAN. I will now call Emory A. Bryant.

STATEMENT OF DR. EMORY A. BRYANT, WASHINGTON, D. C.

The CHAIRMAN. Who do you represent?

Doctor BRYANT. No one but myself.

The CHAIRMAN. I would ask you to be brief so we can expedite the proceedings because we have six or seven others to hear.

Doctor BRYANT. Yes, sir; I won't have but a few words to say. All I have to say is, I have looked over the bills, and in my modest way I do not see anything wrong with them. I say I have looked over these bills and compared them carefully with the law and to the best of my ability I do not see anything wrong. I think that the restrictions on patents is a very fine thing. Now, all I have to say is, it is a matter of cause and effect. I am interested in discovery; discovery has had somewhat of hard sledding in patent litigation, so I went back to find out what was the matter. At one time I had formed the false premise and made quite a battle before Congress and before the departments due to misinformation, and in part, think I went farther than I was justified in going as the official representative of my association.

Now, in regard to process patent, the process involves the interpretation of principle and its application: If one is to go back and try to find out what is the principle involved in some inventions, as interpreted by the courts, it would be a pretty hard proposition. but I went back first to the early days of English decisions and I followed those down, and then the court decisions in the United States and followed those down 1790 to 1847 and I have here a process patent that was granted in 1791. That is just after the act of 1790 was passed. We have made very little change in the law as to patentable inventions, if any, from that time to the present.

Now this was the process patent for the making of dies, etc., it is a method, it was certified to on the 29th of January, 1791, as follows: CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, January 29, 1794.

I do hereby certify that the foregoing letters patent were delivered to me in pursuance of the act entitled "An act to promote the progress of useful arts," that I have examined the same, and find them conformable to the said act. EDWARD RANDOLPH,

Attorney General of the United States.

In those times the officials of the Patent Office, among which were the names of George Washington, with whom we are well acquainted, and Thomas Jefferson, both former Presidents of the United States appear.

Mr. DIES. And the Secretary of War?

Doctor BRYANT. Yes; in those days, the Secretary of War, the Attorney General and the President would sign all patents.

Mr. DIES. From the United States?

Mr. CHAIRMAN. My distinguished colleague wants to know if from the United States.

Doctor BRYANT. Now I suppose what stirred me up more than anything else was the following association action. While perhaps legal, to my mind appears to be an indirect attack upon the whole patent system of the United States, the method and scope of which I can not conscientiously approve.

The CHAIRMAN. Before you go any further, for the benefit of the record, you approve all of these bills?

Doctor BRYANT. Yes, sir; because I suppose the Commissioner of Patents and the Patent Attorneys' Association are perfectly competent to advise and take care of that portion of it.

Now I do not know-some people have said I have some common sense, and some have said otherwise. There is only one amendment I would propose, and that is merely a suggestion,

The CHAIRMAN. To what one?

Doctor BRYANT. H. R. 10156.

The CHAIRMAN. Introduced by whom?

Doctor BRYANT. Introduced by Mr. Kelly, of Illinois. I do not know the gentleman.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the amendment?

Doctor BRYANT. The amendment could be put in at the proper place; a criterion for the courts' decisions, and that is" beneficial to mankind." "Any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter beneficial to mankind, or any new and useful improvements thereof, or who has invented," and so forth. I do not know of any reason for granting patents if they are not "beneficial to mankind" and the public, which means the people. We have laws on the statute books that a patent that is not of benefit to mankind is taken care of by law, for instance the "Maxim Silencer," that has been quietly sidetracked; that is, when the bootleggers do not get hold of it. I am making that merely as a suggestion that I want the patent attorneys to think over, as well as the Members of Congress. I have had the Members of Congress, a few Presidents, and a few other persons say that I was not altogether wrong. Not only that, but the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States quite agreed with me in my contention. I did not argue the case in court, but had the judge himself in the chair where he could not get away from me, and there you have your first mechanical process patent. I do not think I am quite able to go over the subject now as I might be later.

The CHAIRMAN. If you have any proof, I would be glad to have you submit it.

(The proof submitted by Doctor Bryant is as follows:)

AMENDMENTS

ΤΟ CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE BY-LAWS OF THE
AMERICAN DENTAL ASSOCIATION

Chapter XI, section 3, add: "(1) Process patent committee."
Chapter XI, add section 17, to read:

"SEC. 17. (a) The process patent committee shall be composed of five members. One member shall be elected each year, to serve for a period of five years. It shall organize by electing a chairman. The general secretary of the

28

GENERAL REVISION AND AMENDMENT OF PATENT LAW

association shall be, ex officio, with power to vote, secretary of the committee. The latter shall keep a permanet record of its proceedings, shall conduct all correspondence, etc. The process patent committee shall hold such meetings during the annual session and during the year as it may deem necessary. Three members shall constitute a quorum. It shall make an annual report to the house of delegates.

(b) It shall be the duty of the process patent committee to collect each year all of the various patents as they are printed by the patent office pertaining to dental processes, appliances, and materials, and to make an annual report of its finding to the board of trustees of the association.

(c) To ascertain by means of litigation up through the highest court of record if necessary the validity of all patents upon processes or methods used in connection with the practice of dentistry whenever such patent or patents are made use of directly or indirectly for the purpose of collecting royalties or license fees from the dentists of this country or whenever such patents are used in any other manner which tends to hamper the progress or manipulative skill of the dental profession.

(d) To raise the necessary funds by any method approved by the board of trustees of the association. To hire attorneys, agents, office help, appoint committees, and such other duties as shall pertain to the furthering of the litigation. (e) To publish the proceedings of all its meetings at which the question of litigation of a process patent is discussed, in the Journal not later than 60 days from the date of such meeting. It shall make an annual written report and financial statement to the board of trustees, said report to be published in the Journal only at their discretion.

(f) The association, through its constituted officers, shall authorize the treasurer to pay over, when needed, to the process patent committee a sum not exceeding $1,000. This money is to be used for the initial expense of litigation, the raising of funds, or for any other purpose as may be decided by the committee. All funds advanced in this manner shall be considered a loan to be repaid by the committee to the treasury of the association at the termination of the litigation for which the loan was advanced, provided sufficient funds are available.

(g) Any member who believes that his welfare is affected by a process patent may bring a resolution before his State society, giving his reasons why that particular patent should be litigated, and if the resolution is passed by a majority vote of the State society, it shall be forwarded at once by the secretary of the State society to the secretary of the process patent committee who shall call a meeting of the committee not later than 15 days from the day of receipt of the resolution. Two members of the State society suggesting litigation will be allowed to appear before the committee to discuss the resolution.

(h) If the process patent committee decides not to litigate a patent, any member of the association may appear before the council of his State society, and if upon consideration of the facts involved the council of that society shall pass a resolution disagreeing with the action of the process-patent com-.. mittee, then this resolution signed by the president and the secretary of that State society shall be mailed at once to the president of the association, who shall then call a joint meeting of the trustees of the association and the processpatent committee for the purpose of considering the resolution passed by the State society or its council. At these meetings the trustees of the association and the process-patent committee shall each have the right to vote. The chairman of these meetings shall be the president of the association. The president of the State society that has passed the resolution shall have the right to appoint two members who may be present at the joint meeting, take part in its deliberation, but who may not vote. The action of this meeting in all matters pertaining to the litigation of patents shall be final. The joint meeting shall be held not later than 30 days from the date of receipt of resolutions from the council of the State society.

(i) Disposition of left-over funds. Any funds that may be left over after litigating a patent shall be disposed of according to a decision of a joint meeting of the process-patent committee and the board of trustees of the association.

(j) No process patent shall be compromised.