4 REPORT OF THE PATENT COMMITTEE 



interests had a hand in their selection or that they were chosen to pro- 

 mote special views as to the patent law and its application. They would 

 be men who had been primarily selected by the President as fit to be 

 Federal Judges in the localities where they live. Federal Judges are 

 men of a high type, and many of them are broad-minded men, much 

 respected in the communities in which they serve. They would take up 

 the work of the Court of Patent Appeals with a breadth coming from the 

 performance of their general duties of Judges in their own circuits or 

 districts and would, therefore, escape the narrowing which so often comes 

 from continuous work in a specialized field. 



The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court would select 

 from the District and Circuit Judges throughout the land men whom he 

 thought most competent to serve for a term on the Court of Patent 

 Appeals. He would seldom, if ever, take more than one Judge at a 

 time from any one Circuit. The Court, therefore, would be made up of 

 men who were primarily Judges and who would be recognized as bringing 

 to the Court of Patent Appeals the instinct and feelings, on the subject 

 of the interpretation of the patent law, of the courts and of the people 

 in the communities in which they live. 



Undoubtedly many of them would only be on the appellate court for 

 one term and after that they would go back to their circuits or districts 

 with a training as patent Judges such as could be obtained only by sit- 

 ting for a period of years in such an appellate court. They would not 

 only be qualified as patent Judges, but they would reflect the atmos- 

 phere of the appellate court and cause that atmosphere to pervade 

 their own neighborhood. They would thereafter undoubtedly be selected 

 to hear patent cases in their lower courts in preference to Judges who 

 had not had training in the Court of Patent Appeals. The courts 

 throughout the country would, in time, become educated to the high 

 and definite standards established by the Court of Patent Appeals, not 

 only by study of the decisions of that Court, but by the presence in the 

 lower courts of men who had had this special training in the upper 

 court. 



It is of the utmost importance that these Judges in the Court of 

 Patent Appeals should be well paid. Otherwise they might not be 

 willing to break up their homes and go to Washington for a limited 

 term. We think that their salaries should be higher than those of the 

 Judges of any court in the United States except the United States 

 Supreme Court. 



The increased expense due to such a court would be small. The 

 aggregate amount of work to be done by the Judges of the United States 



