386 CYRUS N. ANDERSON 



the United States of America or any foreign country before 

 his invention or discovery thereof, or more than two years 

 prior to his application; that the said invention had not been 

 in public use or on sale in the United States for more than 

 two years prior to his application, and that no application 

 for foreign patent had been filed by him or his legal repre- 

 sentatives or assigns in any foreign country prior to his ap- 

 plication in the United States. If, however, applications 

 for patents in countries foreign to the United States have 

 been made at the time of the filing of an application in the 

 United States, it is necessary for the applicant to name the 

 foreign country or countries in which such applications have 

 been made, giving the date of the filing of the same. 



The claims are necessary to a complete specification. 

 The specification must, of course, be signed by the applicant, 

 who in nearly all cases is the inventor, and the application 

 when forwarded to the patent office must be accompanied 

 by the first government fee of $15. Wliere the application 

 relates to an invention which can be graphically depicted, 

 it is necessary to prepare and file drawings with and as a 

 part of the application. 



If any one of the parts above referred to are omitted, 

 the application will not be accepted by the patent office, and 

 the same will not be filed until all of the parts have been 

 received by the patent office. 



After an application has been received by the patent 

 office, it goes to the application division, where it is classi- 

 fied, and is then forwarded to the division in the patent office 

 in which is to be found the class of machine or art to which the 

 invention belongs. Applications received in the office are 

 examined in regular order, according to their filing dates. 



Before the claims of an application are allowed, careful 

 examination of the prior art is made, and only such claims 

 are allowed as distinguish from the constructions disclosed 

 by the patents and other publications discovered by the 

 examiner in his search of the art. 



As a rule these examinations are carefully made, though, 

 as you will readily understand, where several hundred ex- 

 aminers and assistants are employed, some of them are more 



