REPRINT AND CIRCULAR SERIES 



OF THE 



NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 



NUMBER 1 



REPORT OF THE PATENT COMMITTEE OF THE 

 NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL* 



Presented for the Committee 



BY L. H. BAEKELAND 

 ACTING CHAIRMAN 



The Commissioner of Patents in 1917, with the approval of the Sec- 

 retary of the Interior, requested the National Research Council to ap- 

 point a committee to investigate the Patent Office and patent system, 

 with a view to increasing their effectiveness, and to consider what might 

 be done to make the Patent Office more of a national institution and 

 more vitally useful to the industrial life of the country. 



Mr. Thomas Ewing, who is a member of your Patent Committee, was 

 the Commissioner of Patents who took that action. 



The National Research Council, complying with the request, ap- 

 pointed a Patent Committee, consisting of: Dr. William F. Durand, 

 Chairman; Drs. Leo H. Baekeland and M. I. Pupin, scientists and in- 

 ventors; Drs. R. A. MilHkan and S. W. Stratton, scientists; Dr. Reid 

 Hunt, physician; and Messrs. Frederick P. Fish, Thomas Ewing and 

 Edwin J. Prindle, patent lawyers. On the departure of Dr. Durand for 

 Europe, Dr. Baekeland was appointed Acting Chairman of the Committee. 



Your Committee has approached its work in the belief that the 

 American patent system has been one of the most potent factors in the 

 development of the prosperity of our country. Americans, being de- 

 scendants of the European races, are not naturally more inventive than 

 are Europeans, but under the incentive of the American patent system 

 they have produced many more inventions and been able to pay higher 

 wages and live on a better scale than Europeans. 



American inventions have played a vital part in the war. There is 

 hardly any implement or explosive that our Army and Navy has used 



* Published (without proposed bills) in Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, 20, 150- 

 151, 1919. 



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