
; ~ PRIZES ON PATENTS. 
i HOW TO GET TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED 
DOLLARS - NOTHING. 
be 
pid 
The Winner has a Clear Gift of a 
Small Fortune, and the Losers 
ie Have Patents that may 
i Bring them in 
Still More. 
























’ Would you like to make twenty-five hundred 
‘dollars? If you would, read carefully what fol- 
lows and you may see a way to do it. 
_ The Press Claims Company devotes much at- 
ention to patents It has handled thousands of 
applications for inventions, but it would like to 
handle thousands more. There is plenty of in- 
ventive talent at large in this country, needing 
othing but encouragement to produce practical 
esults. That encouragement the Press Claims 
Company proposes to give. 
NOT SO HARD AS IT SEEMS. 
_ A patent strikes most people as an appallingly 
formidable thing, The idea is that an inventor 
must be a natural genius, like Edison or Bell; 
t] hat he must devote years to delving in compli- 
cated mechanical problems and that he must 
; Pporfection. This delusion the company de- 
esto dispel. It desires to get into the head of 
€ public a clear comprehension of the fact 
at it is not the great, complex, and expensive 
withors, but the little, simple, and cheap ones— 
he things that seem so absurdly trivial that the 
bringing them to the attention of the Patent 
fice, 
Edison says that the profits he has received 
‘om the patents on all his marvelous inventions 
pee not been sufficient to pay the cost of his 
experiments. But the man who conceived the 
idea of fastening a bit of rubber cord to a child's 
“bali, 80 that it would come beck to the hand 
_ when thrown, made a fortune out of his scheme. 
, fs he modern sewing-machine is a miracle of in- 
'genuity—the prodict of the toil of hundreds of 
usy brains through a hundred and fifty years, 
hu the whole brilliant result rests upon the 


ih th ped Pe A 
simple device of putting the eye of the needle 
at the point instead of at the other end, 
THE LITTLE THINGS THE MOST 
VALUABLE. 
Comparatively few people regard themselves 
as inventors, but almost everybody has been 
struck, at one time or another, with ideas that 
seemed calculated to reduce some of the little 
frictions of life. Usually such ideas are dis- 
missed without further thought. 
“Why don’t the railroad company make its 
car windows so that they can be slid up and 
down without breaking the passengers’ backs ?”’ 
exclaims the traveler. ‘‘If I were running the 
road I would make them in such a way.”’ 
“What was the man that made this saucepan 
thinking of?’ grumbles the cook. ‘‘He never 
had to work over a stove, or he would have > 
known how it ought to have been fixed.’’ 
“Hang such a collar button!”: growls the man 
who is late for breakfast. ‘If I were in the 
business I’d make buttons that would’nt slip 
out, or break off, or gouge out the back of my 
neck,” 
And then the various sufferers forget about 
their grievances and begin to think of some- 
thing else. Ifthey would sit down at the next 
convenient opportunity, put their ideas about 
car windows, saucepans, and collar buttons into 
practical shape, and then apply for patents, they 
might find themselves as independently wealthy 
as the man who invented the iron umbrella 
ring, or the one who patented the fifteen puzzle. 
A TEMPTING OFFER. 
To induce people to keep track of their bright 
ideas and see what there is in them, the Press 
Claims Company has resolved to offer a prize. 
To the person who submits to it the 
simplest and most promising inven- 
tion, from a commercial point of 
view, the company will give twenty- 
five hundred dollars in cash, in addi- 
tion to refunding the fees for secur- 
ing the patent. 
It will also advertise the invention 
free of charge. 
This offer is subject to the fol!owing condi- 
tions: 
Every competitor must obtain a patent for his 
invention through the company. He must first 
apply. for a preliminary search, the cost of 
which will be five dollars Should this search 
show his invention to be unpatentable, he can 
withdraw without further expense. Otherwise 
he will be expected to complete his application 

