REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 29 



Middle West ; Dr. C. L. Alsberg, representative of the committee on 

 the Pacific coast ; and F. L. Lewton, representative from the United 

 States National Museum. 



On the recommendation of the committee, O. E. Roberts, jr., was 

 appointed curator of the Loeb collection of chemical types on April 

 1, 1924. Twenty-seven specimens were added to the collection during 

 the year and several hundred are being prepared for presentation. 

 It is expected that the intensive work of the next year or two will 

 demonstrate the value of a type series of this kind. 



The collections of the National Museum in the field of the arts and 

 industries are more and more becoming recognized as a vast refer- 

 ence book of authentic infonnation. Various governmental agencies 

 rely upon the Museum's specimens for the identification and com- 

 parison of new material. Manufacturers are beginning to realize 

 that the deposition of their products in the collections of the Museum 

 acts as an additional protection against suits for infringement, and 

 those who may have been accidentally granted a patent on an art 

 that is not new. Several examples of the value of this protection 

 have recently been brought to the attention of the Museum by patent 

 examiners and attorneys for patentees. In one case a suit for in- 

 fringement involving large damages was settled out of court upon 

 the evidence of a Museum specimen. In two other cases the denial 

 by the Patent Office of a patent on a product constructed upon what 

 were claimed to be entirely new principles was found warranted 

 after examinations of specimens in the National Museum. The old 

 adage, "There is nothing new under the sun," is often shown to be 

 true when an examination is made of the Museum's collections. That 

 feature of the American patent system which denies a patent to an 

 art or invention that has been shown to the public for two years or 

 more increases the importance of a great collection illustrating 

 industrial processes and products and makes it an important refer- 

 ence book to the United States Patent Office as well as to manu- 

 facturers, inventors, and the investing public. With the continued 

 cooperation of American industries these collections will grow in 

 importance and scope, enabling the National Museum to render 

 more efficient service along these lines. 



The Museum served also in the diffusion of knowledge by assist- 

 ing the parent institution in its broadcasting program under Austin 

 H. Clark, of the Museum staff, in whose charge the subject was 

 placed by the secretary. Arrangements were made for broadcast- 

 ing from Station WRC, Radio Corporation of America, a talk on 

 the Smithsonian proper, historical in nature, and a series of sup- 

 plementary talks on the various major divisions. Seven 15-minute 

 talks were accordingly given by staff members, the first on October 

 19 and the last on November 16, 1923. 



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