REPORT OF THE PATENT COMMITTEE 9 



courts and the public is impaired, and the production of inventions 

 discouraged. 



Your Committee accordingly recommends a substantial increase in 

 the salaries of the Patent Office officials, and in the number and salaries 

 of the examiners, as provided in the draft of a proposed bill for that 

 purpose which is attached hereto. 



While your Committee believes that the Patent Office so fully justifies 

 its existence that it would be an exceedingly profitable investment, 

 even though all expenses were paid from the public income, the Patent 

 Office has always been self-supporting and the increase in salaries and 

 examining force which the Committee recommends can easily be entirely 

 taken care of by the Patent Office income, if necessary. 



COMPENSATION FOR INFRINGEMENT OF PATENTS 



While an injunction can ordinarily be obtained against an infringer in 

 a case where a patent is adjudged valid, except where it would interfere 

 with Government work, a money recovery has not heretofore been 

 generally possible except under most favorable circumstances. In a case 

 where it cannot be said that the entire salability of the article depends 

 upon the invention, it has been necessary to show just how much of the 

 price of the article is attributable to the invention, and as it is ordinarily 

 impossible to make such a separation, and as most patent cases are ones 

 in which it cannot be said that the whole salability of the article depended 

 upon the invention, it has resulted that recovery of money is seldom 

 obtained in a patent suit. 



Recently there have been two or three decisions in which the courts 

 have taken a more liberal attitude, holding in effect that where an in- 

 vention has been used by an infringer a reasonable royalty may be 

 awarded to the patentee based on a mere estimation or on opinion evi- 

 dence, even though no exact computation can be made. This is anal- 

 ogous to the attitude of the courts in personal injury cases and is entirely 

 just and reasonable. While, as stated, there have been two or three 

 decisions to this effect, it may take a generation to induce United 

 States courts generally to adopt this position, if at all, and the Com- 

 mittee therefore proposes that the law be amended to provide, that as 

 damages to the complainant, the court, on due proceedings had, may 

 adjudge and decree to the owner payment of a reasonable royalty or 

 other form of general damages. Such an amendment has been provided 

 in the attached bill amending section 4921, the Revised Statutes of the 

 United States, and reading as follows: 



