67 



GOVERNMENT WORK AND THE PATENT OFFICE. 



BY C. V. RILEY, WASHINGTON, D.C. 



[Author's Abstract.] 



The paper was based on a patent recently obtained by three parties in California for 

 the treatment of trees by hydrocyanic acid gas for the destruction of scale-insects and 

 other insects that injuriously affect trees. It reviewed at length the efforts of the 

 Department in this line of investigation, and showed conclusively that this gas treatment 

 had originated and been perfected by one of the agents of the Division of Entomology, 

 who had, in fact, for the past five years, been carrying on a series of experiments in this 

 particular line under the author's direction ; that so soon as the treatment came to be 

 recognised as of the greatest utility and perfected so that it was cheap and available to 

 all needing to use it, application for a patent was made by the parties in question, and in 

 spite of an official protest from the Department of Agriculture pending the application, a 

 patent was finally granted, as, under the law, the Commissioner of Patents has no rio-ht 

 to consider ex parte testimony pending examination, even though offered by an officer of 

 the Government in the interest of the public. The fact that the process had been fully 

 described and recorded in official reports from the Department of Agriculture did not 

 prevent the issuing of the patent. So valuable is this treatment considered that an efl:brt 

 has been made in southern California to subscribe the sum of $10,000 to buy the ri^ht 

 from the patentees. The author remarked that he personally had no hesitation in advisin^ 

 the orange-growers to pay no heed to the claims of the patentees, and that it would be 

 wiser to combine to oppose them if suit were brought than to subscribe to give them an 

 undeserved and valuable royalty. 



His own conviction was that the patent was invalid and the certificate but a piece of 

 paper carrying no absolute evidence of priority of invention ; and it is greatly to be 

 regretted that, through legal technicality or otherwise, it should ever have been granted. 



The author mentioned other cases of this kind where, after years of labour and lar»e 

 expenditures on the part of the Department of Agriculture, valuable results had been 

 obtained. In some cases they took the form of mechanisms, which were described and 

 figured in the official reports ; in other cases of mere discoveries. He said : 



" There is nothing more discouraging to an officer of the Government en^^af^ed in 

 original investigations, with a view to benefiting the public, than the efforts of various 

 private individuals to appropriate the results, of which the foregoing case is an example. 

 I have been engaged now for nearly a quarter of a century either as a State or Govern- 

 ment officer in investigations, having for their object in the main the protection of plants 

 and domestic animals from the attacks of injurious insects. Either directly or with the 

 -aid of assistants these investigation have resulted in some important discoveries of uni- 

 versal application, and I can say with pride that, though often urged to take personal 

 advantage of such discoveries, I have in no single instance accepted a fee for information 

 given, or received a dollar from any application of these discoveries, even where others 

 have reaped fortunes. As a salaried officer my duty was plain, and I make the statement, 

 without boastfulness and simply to emphasise the discouraging fact, that in every instance 

 where the benefit to the public has been great, either the honour has been contested by 

 private parties or else means have been taken by private individuals to control, throuo-h 

 patent or otherwise, the discoveries for their personal ends." 



It would seem that on this account the Patent Office should endeavour, in considering 

 applications for patents for objects which the Government is already endeavouring to 

 accomplish, to ascertain fully what the Government has done, as any other course will 

 tend to pervert, discourage and neutralize all honest etfort3 made by other Departments 

 of the Government for the public good. It would seem, also, that there is need of some 

 modification of the law in so far as Government evidence is concerned. 



