59§ 
Product  Patents. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharrn. 
1   December,  1898. 
identical  machine  with  a  circular  saw  substituted  for  a  perpendicular 
reciprocating  saw.  This  patent  for  improvement  was  granted  to 
the  original  inventor,  but  the  logic  of  the  law  would  require  the 
grant  to  any  other  inventor.   (Earl  vs.  Sawyer,  4th  Mason  1,  1825.) 
With  this  summing  up  of  the  legal  aspects  of  product  patents,  it 
would  be  well  to  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  the 
COMMERCIAL  ASPECTS. 
Clear  up  to  the  early  '8o's,  very  little  advantage  was  taken  of 
the  liberal  provisions  of  our  patent  laws,  but  about  this  time,  enter- 
prising chemists  in  Germany  (our  laws  permit  foreigners  to  take  out 
patents)  saw  the  possibilities  of  the  situation  in  the  United  States. 
After  a  few  tentative  patents,  the  ventures  proved  profitable  beyond 
the  clear  calculations  of  commercial  prescience.  At  the  present 
time,  there  are  no  reports  from  the  patent  office  which  do  not  in- 
clude numerous  examples  of  this  class  of  patents  granted  to  Ger- 
man inventors.  These  patents  are  generally  assigned  to  trustees  in 
this  country  for  the  purpose  of  protection  against  infringement  and 
of  managing  the  business  of  selling.  In  almost  every  instance,  the 
product  is  made  abroad,  bringing  to  this  country  nothing  but  the 
ad  valorem  tariff  duty  on  their  actual  value  as  commercial  commo- 
dities. The  prices  at  which  they  are  sold  here  are  clearly  indica- 
tive of  a  greed  and  rapacity  which  seem  to  be  unrivalled-  in  any 
other  form  of  commercial  monopoly.  Taking,  for  instance,  the 
case  of  phenacetin  ;  it  is  probable  that  the  outside  approximate 
cost  of  this  article,  landed  in  this  country,  duty  paid  and  put 
up  in  1 -ounce  packages,  is  10  cents  per  ounce  ;  the  selling  price 
to  the  trade  is  $1  per  ounce.  To  get  an  accurate  idea  of  what 
had  been  wrested  from  the  people  of  these  United  States  upon 
this  one  article,  the  writer  appealed  to  the  Bureau  of  Statistics 
of  the  Treasury  Department,  but  received  the  information  that 
prior  to  1895  there  are  no  records  of  any  importation  of  phenacetin, 
as  such,  and  since  that  time  only  a  few  thousand  ounces  have  been 
imported  ;  these  being  various  lots  that  were  imported  by  others 
than  the  accredited  agents  of  the  trustee  in  claimed  infringement 
upon  the  rights  of  the  patent.  The  chemical  and  pharmaceutical 
trade  in  this  country  hold  to  the  opinion  that  an  estimate  of  300,- 
000  ounces  a  year  for  the  term  of  the  patent  is  conservative. 
Deducting  the  cost  and  jobber's  commission  would  leave  about  75 
