236 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[April i, 1909. 



A PROPOSED SPECIAL PATENT COURT. 



'T'HERE is a bill before the Congress at Washington for the 

 •^ establishment of a United States Court of Patent Ap- 

 peals, which in a measure carries out a suggestion' of the Ameri- 

 can Bar Association, approved by a number of other bodies rep- 

 resentative of the legal profession. The keynote of the Bar Asso- 

 ciation's recommendation was : "A United States patent ought to 

 have the same legal force and meaning everywhere within its 

 borders. But it has not at the present time." 



At the beginning the Circuit courts of the United States had 

 original jurisdiction and the Supreme court appellate jurisdiction 

 in all patent litigation. During the century while this system pre- 

 vailed the reports of the supreme court contained a body of law 

 — consistent, coherent, voluminous and wise — the result of a large 

 number of cases which arose in interpreting the statutes and creat- 

 ing a vast number of rules of law outside the statute which con- 

 stitute the great body of the patent law down to 1891. The sys- 

 tem was eminently satisfactory in every respect except on ac- 

 count of the delays incident to the decision by the supreme court 

 of so many appeals as began in time to reach it in patent cases. 



To relieve the supreme court, which by the year 1891 was 

 three to four years behind its docket, the congress created the 

 circuit court of appeals, with final jurisdiction in patent cases, 

 reserving to the supreme court only the right of review in case 

 that body regarded it necessary, and the circuit court of appeals 

 was divided into nine circuits to correspond with the divisions 

 of the United States circuit court. In other words, the law 

 created nine courts of last resort for patent cases, all of equal 

 dignity, none of them bound by the decision of the others, 

 located in nine different parts of the country, and exposed to all 

 the elements calculated to rob their decisions of uniformity. 



About the best concrete example which illustrates the con- 

 flict which exists between circuit courts of appeal will be 

 found in the suit brought for infringement by the owners of 

 the A. W. Grant patent for a solid rubber tire for carriage 

 wheels — a matter which has been reported at much length in 

 The India Rubber World. The patentee brought many suits 

 for alleged infringement, with varying results, so that to-day 

 the Grant patent is invalid in certain appellate court juris- 

 dictions and valid in others, and one petition to the United 

 States supreme court for certiorari in connection with the Grant 

 cases was denied. 



It is pointed out with great clearness, in the report of the 

 house committee on the judiciary which recommends the pass- 

 age of the bill now before congress, how the present system 

 may rob the holder of any patent of any sort of protection if 

 once litigation arises over it, and the same document shows 

 also how large a percentage of the litigation before the federal 

 courts relates to patents. 



The salient features of the proposed new law are that the 

 president of the United States shall appoint as chief justice 

 of the new court a judge of one of the circuit courts or dis- 

 trict courts, and that such chief justice shall designate four 

 other judges of circuit or district courts to be associated with 

 him, and four of the five judges so named shall form a quorum. 

 The United States court of patent appeals shall have juris- 

 diction in the case of appeals and writs of error from de- 

 crees in the circuit courts, and the decisions of the new courts 

 shall be final, except that it shall be competent for the supreme 

 court to require any case to be certified to it for its review, the 

 same as if the matter had been carried from the trial court 

 directly to the supreme court. 



The merit claimed for the new system is that not only 

 will one decision prevail throughout the United States as re- 

 gards the validity of a given patent, but a great saving of time 

 and expense will result from confining to one court the at- 

 tention to details which under the existing system might come 

 before an indefinite number of courts of equal rank and dignity. 



In support of the plan for drawing the members of the 

 new court from the existing federal courts, it is urged that 

 the judges of these courts are selected by the President 

 from the bar as men of attained experience and reputation, who 

 enjoy the confidence of the public for ability and integrity. 

 These men, after service upon the circuit or district bench for 

 a number of years, a part of which service involves the trial 

 of patent cases in the first instance, are devloped to a hig'h 

 standard of judicial attainment, and their decisions indicate very 

 clearly to the bench and the bar which of them have any apti- 

 tude for the handling of patent cases. [For an earlier article 

 on this subject see The Indi.\ Rubber World, November i, 

 1907— page 34.] 



WORK OF THE PATENT OFFICE. 



The number of patents granted by the United States during 

 the calendar year 1908 was less than, for the preceding year, 

 which may or may not have been due to the financial depression 

 which prevailed. Even in the most prosperous times every in- 

 ventor does not find it an easy matter to find the cash for patent 

 office fees. The number was greater, however, than in any pre- 

 ceding year, with the exception of 1907. The number granted 

 during 1908 was 32,757, but as the same year witnessed the 

 expiration of 22,328 patents, the net addition to the number of 

 effective patents was only 10,419. These figures do not include 

 design patents, reissues, or trade marks. The total number of 

 patents granted by the United States to the end of last year was 

 918,392. The number granted by other countries (the figures for 

 1908 being partially estimated) was 1,952,086, making a total for 

 all countries of 2,870,478, a vast proportion of which must be 

 taken account of in deciding whether inventions for which patents 

 are desired possess any novelty. The United States patent office 

 has been reorganized of late, with an increased force, and has 

 caught up with its work so as to make it possible to pass on the 

 average application within from 30 to 60 days. The patent 

 office is entirely self-supporting; indeed the surplus receipts over 

 expenditures amounts to date to $6,890,725.89. The commissioner 

 of patents suggests to Congress that in view of this surplus the 

 patent office should have a building of its own, better adapted 

 to its work, as is the case in Great Britain and Germany. 



RUBBER AT THE KEW GARDENS. 



'T'HE collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew were 

 •*• largely enriched, after the International Rubber Exhibition 

 at Olympia, by presents from various exhibitors of living plants, 

 particularly of the least common rubber yielding species ; stems 

 of other plants, some illustrating methods of tapping ; herbarium 

 specimens, samples of rubber products, and photographs illustra- 

 tive of rubber culture and of the preparation of rubber both in 

 forests and on plantations. Mr. Ed. Maurer, of New York, is 

 credited with guayule plants and samples of raw and manufac- 

 tured guayule rubber. Various presentations also recently made 

 to the museums at Kew were from Mr. F. H. Hunicke, of New 

 York, including specimens to show the method of preparing 

 rubber from Landolphia ThoUonii in the Congo Free State. The 

 authorities at Kew are not only diligent in making their col- 

 lections as complete as possible, but they are all the while con- 

 tributing to a wider knowledge of rubber species from a practical 

 cultural standpoint. Thus the latest Bulletin mentions that with 

 the assistance of Mr. J. A. Davy, Fazienda Dumont, Sao Paulo, 

 Brazil, a large quantity of seeds of Remanso (Manihot piau- 

 hycnsis) and Jequie {Manihot dichotoma) manicoba rubbers 

 was obtained and distributed to 32 botanical and agricultural 

 stations in the tropics. 



Send for a copy (free) of the Index to "Crude Rubber and 

 Compounding Ingredients." 



