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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1370 



The oceanogxaphic committee will remain in 

 existence with, a watching and organizing brief 

 ready to revive tlie project whenever a favor- 

 able opportunity arises, and the council will 

 doubtless report upon the whole raatter to the 

 meeting of the general committee of the asso- 

 ciation at Edinburgh next September. It is 

 hoped that the proposed expedition is post- 

 poned only for a season, and that the interval 

 may be usefully employed in perfecting plans 

 and making other essential preparations. 



THE NOLAN PATENT OFFICE BILL 



The American Engineering Council of the 

 Federated American Engineering Societies 

 will seek at the opening of the special session 

 of Congress to have the !N"olan Patent Office 

 Bill passed. 



Failure of the measure in the last session 

 is attributed to the presence of the Federal 

 Trade Commission section which Edwin J. 

 Prindle, of New York, chairman of the Amer- 

 ican Engineering Council's Patents Com- 

 mittee in a report to L. W. Wallace, executive 

 secretary of the council, asserts should not be 

 enacted into law in any form even as a sepa- 

 rate bill. The committee reports: 



The ball for the imperatively neeessary relief of 

 the Patent Office, after passing the House of Eep- 

 resentatives with satisfactory provisions for the 

 Patent Office, failed to pass the Senate at the 

 session just closed with those same provisions, 

 solely because of the presence in it of an unre- 

 lated section known as the Federal Trade Com- 

 mission Section. 



The former opposition in the Senate to the Pat- 

 ent Office relief and that which forced the imac- 

 ceptable reductions in salaries and numbers of ex- 

 aminers and clerks (which the Conference Com- 

 mittee was persuaded to set aside) is largely and 

 seemingly almost wholly overcome. But the -oppo- 

 sition in the Senate to the Federal Trade Section 

 is determined and has expressed an intention to 

 prevent the Patent Office from getting the desired 

 relief unless the ^Federal Trade Section is removed 

 from the bill. 



More than preventing the Patent Office relief, 

 however, the Federal Trade Section is believed to 

 be a dangerous measure in itself. It provides that 

 the Federal Trade Commission may receive as- 

 signments of and administer inventions and pat- 



ents from governmental employees and is an enter- 

 ing wedge for further legislation to empower the 

 Trade Commission to receive patents from non- 

 governmental inventors or owners. 



An exclusive license would have to be granted, 

 at least for a few years, to induce any one to 

 undertake the almost always necessary develop- 

 ment expense, and the Trade Commission would 

 surely be charged with favoritism in granting 

 such a license. In order to protect its licensees, 

 the Trade Commission would have to sue infringers, 

 a most unfortunate activity for the government. 

 The industries would close their doors to the gov- 

 ernment employees fearing to disclose to them 

 their secrets or unpatented inventions, and research 

 by the industries would be discouraged for fear 

 that government employees, using government fa- 

 cilities, might reach the result first and patent it. 



THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 



The American Philosophical Society will 

 hold its general meeting in the hall of the 

 society on Independence Square on April 21, 

 22 and 23. The program includes the follow- 

 ing discussions: 



The Application of the Method of the Interfer- 

 ometer to certain Astronomical Eesearohes: 

 To astrophysical problems: Henrv Nokris Eus- 

 SELL, Ph.D., professor of astronomy, Prince- 

 ton University. 

 To the measurement of double stars: Frank 

 ScHLESiNGER, Ph.D., director. Tale University 

 Observatory. 

 To the determination of stellar parallaxes: 

 John A. Millbe, Ph.D., director, Sproul Ob- 

 servaitory, Swarthmore, Pa. 

 Atomic structure: 



Davto Webster, professor of physics, Leland 



Stanford University. 

 William Duane, director of radium institute. 



Harvard Medical School, Boston. 

 Bergen Davis, professor of physics, Columbia 



University. 

 On Friday evening there will be a reception 

 in the hall of the Historical Society of Penn- 

 sylvania, when Dr. James H. Breasted, pro- 

 fessor of Egyptology and Oriental history. 

 University of Chicago, will speak on " Follow- 

 ing the trail of our earliest ancestors " illus- 

 trated by lantern slides. 



Award will be made of the society's Henry 

 M. Phillips Prize of two thousand dollars for 



