The United States Patent Office issues patents under the seat of the government to any person who has invented any new and useful art, contrivance, manufacture or composition of matter, improvement, or the like, not already patented or known in this country, or not printed or described in any publication, local or foreign, prior to the discovery, and not on sale two years before the application for the patent, unless such sale has been discontinued. Some of the ingenious inventions for which patents are issued include busts, statues, reliefs, designs for printing fabrics, new ornaments, patterns or new shapes of articles for manufacture.

Attorney's room at the Patent Office, where all patent records are kept. This room is always crowded with Patent Attorneys, looking over patent records.

The patent is an instrument granting to the patentee, his heirs or assigns, the exelusive right to his invention for a period of 17 years, within the jurisdiction of the United States. Joint patents are issued to two or more people who work on the same invention, and not single patents to each. Patents on foreign inventions for which foreign patents have been already allowed may be secured from this government, unless the article patented abroad has been in use here more than two years prior to the time of application. Patents thus secured, however, expire at the end of the foreign patent-term which has the least unexpired time, if there are several patents, and in no case run over 17 years.

The Commissioner of Patents is the official to whom applications for patents must be directed. With the application must be filed a written description of the invention, with its manner of making, construction, compounding, or the like, made perfectly clear. In case it is a machine a model must be sent. Drawings also are required for certain inventions. An oath is required of all applicants, stating that they believe the invention new and original and that the applicants are the rightful discoverers.

Assignments of patents may be made, or of an interest in a patent. This is done in writing, and the exclusive right to the patent for the whole or part of the United States may be thus granted. In case of errors, where more than rightful claims have been allowed to a patentee, the patent becomes invalid. Put where papers are filed showing such errors, a re-issue will be granted.

A caveat is a notice filed with the Patent Office by an inventor stating that he is working on an idea and that he wishes to prevent a patent issuing to any one else who may have the same idea. This costs $10, and protects the caveator from infringement for one year.

All patent fees are paid in advance and run as follows: Filing original application, $15. Designs, for three years and six months, $10; seven years, $15; 14 years, $30; each application for re-issue of patent, $30; filing disclaimer, $10; certified copies of patent, etc., ten cents a hundred words; recording assignments, powers of attorney, etc., three hundred words, or under, $1; under a thousand words, $2; over a thousand words, $3.

THE INTER-STATE COMMERCE LAW
THE CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES
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© 1998, 2002 by Lynn Waterman