CHAPTER XI.-PATENT RIGHTS, TRADE MARKS AND COPYRIGHTS. NOTE. The following statements are abstracts of the laws passed by Congress concerning patent-rights and copyrights, and a brief statement of the law of trade-marks. The object of these statements is rather to explain the purposes, means of obtaining and duration of these rights, than to attempt to show what would constitute infringements of them, and what penalty is provided for infringements. PATENT-RIGHTS. By an Act of Congress, approved July 8, 1870, "Any person who has invented or discovered any new or useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, not known or used by others in this country, and not patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, before his invention or discovery thereof, and not in public use or on sale for more than two years prior to his application, unless the same is proved to have been abandoned, may, upon payment of the fees required by law, and other due proceedings had, obtain a patent therefor." This patent is issued in the name of the United States of America, under the seal of the Patent Office, signed by the Secretary of the Interior, or under his direction by one of the Secretaries of the Interior, and countersigned by the Commissioner of Patents. It grants to the patentee, his heirs and assigns, the exclusive right to make, use and vend, the invention or discovery throughout the United States for a term of seventeen years. Patents may be obtained on inventions or discoveries previously patented in foreign countries, provided they have not been introduced into public use in the United States within two years prior to the application for a patent here. But such pat^nts expire at the same time in this country that they other country where they were previously patented, provided that the expire in the foreign patent expires within seventeen years after the patent was obtained here. The inventor or discoverer, in order to obtain a patent, must make a written application for the same to the Commissioner of Patents. He must also file at the Patent Office a written specification, setting forth the manner and process of making, constructing, compounding and using his invention or discovery, minutely, accurately and in such exact terms, that one skilled in the same art or science might readily produce the same result. If it is a machine, he must explain the principle, and how he intends to apply his invention, and particularly just what part, improvement, or combination, he claims as his invention. This application and specification must be signed by the inventor and attested by two witnesses. If the case admits of drawings, these should also accompany the specification, signed and witnessed as before; or, if it is a composition of matter, the Commissioner may require specimens of the ingredients and the composition; or, if it can be represented by a model, this, too, may be required. The applicant must also make oath before some magistrate (or, if he is in a foreign country, before the legal representative of the United States there), that he believes himself to be the first and original inventor or discoverer of the invention or discovery which he desires to have patented; that he does not know or believe that the same was known or used before; and must also state of what country he is a citizen. On the filing of the application and payment of the proper fees, the Commissioner shall issue a patent to the applicant, if, after due examination, he finds that the applicant is justly entitled to one under the law. But the patent must bear date within six months from the time it is allowed, and notice thereof sent to the applicant; and if the final fee is not paid within that time, the patent is withheld. The applicant may, however, renew his application, by taking the same steps as at first, within two years after his first application was allowed; but until such renewal no person will be responsible for manufacturing or using the article for which the first application was allowed. All applications must be completed for examination within two years after they are first filed. In default thereof, or on a failure of the applicant to prosecute the same within two years after notice of any action therein, the application shall be regarded as abandoned, unless the Commissioner can be satisfied that the delay was unavoidable. Patents may be granted and issued, or re-issued, to an assignee of the inventor, provided the assignment has been recorded at the Patent Office. But the application must be signed, and the specification sworn to, by the inventor. In case the application is for a reissue, the corrected specification must also be sworn to by the inventor, if he is still living. If any person, who has made an invention or discovery for which a patent might be obtained, dies before it is obtained, his executor or administrator has the right to apply for and obtain the patent, to be held in trust by them. for the deceased's heirs or devisees. Every patent, or any interest in one, may be assigned by an instrument in writing. But unless this assignment is recorded at the Patent Office, it is void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee from the patentee without notice. The patentee, his assigns or legal representatives may, in a like manner, convey an exclusive right under the patent to any part or the whole of the United States. But if any one purchases from the inventor, or constructs with his knowledge and consent, one of the new inventions, before the inventor has applied for a patent, he will not be liable to the inventor if he sells or uses the article so obtained. In order to secure his rights the patentee must fix on the patented article the word "Patented," together with the year and date on which the patent was granted. When, from its character, this cannot be put on the article itself, a label containing these words should be fixed to it, or to the package containing one or more of them. Caveat. Any citizen of the United States, who has made an invention or discovery, but needs further time for maturing it, may obtain protection for a year by paying the proper fees and filing a caveat, setting forth its design and distinguishing characteristics. This caveat will be kept in secrecy; and, if some other person files an application for a patent which would interfere with the claim of him who filed the caveat, notice will be sent to the latter. If the latter desires to avail himself of his caveat, he must file his regular application and specification within three months from the time when this notice is sent. A foreigner may enjoy this same privilege, if he has resided in the United States a year before filing his caveat, and has made oath of his intention to become a citizen. Re-issue of Defective Patents. If, by some honest mistake or accident, a patent becomes inoperative or invalid by reason of a defective or incomplete specification, or by reason of the patentee's claiming as his own invention more than he could claim as new, the Commissioner shall, on the surrender of such patent and the payment of the proper fee, issue a new patent in place of the original patent, in accordance with the corrected specification, for the unexpired part of the original term. But the specification and claim in such a case are subject to the same restrictions and revision as are the original applications. Disclaimer. "Whenever, through some honest inadvertence, accident, or mistake, a patentee has claimed more than that of which he was the original inventor or discoverer, his patent shall be valid for all that part which is truly and justly his, provided the same is a material or substantial part of the thing patented; and any such patentee, his heirs or assigns, whether of the whole or any sectional interest therein, may, on payment of the fee required by law, make disclaimer of such parts of the thing patented as he shall not choose to claim or hold by virtue of the patent or assignment, stating therein the extent of his interest in such payment." This disclaimer must be in writing, witnessed, and recorded in the Patent Office, and is afterwards considered a part of the original specification to the extent of the claimant's interest. But such disclaimer shall not affect any suit on the patent pending at the time of filing it, except as it relates to the question of unreasonable delay or neglect in filing. Patents for Designs. "Any person who has invented or produced any new and original design for a manufacture, bust, statue, alto-relievo, or bas-relief; any new and original design for the printing of woolen, silk, cotton, or other fabric; any new and original impression, ornament, patent, print, or picture to be printed, painted, cast, or otherwise placed on or worked into any article of manufacture; or any new, useful, and original shape or configuration of manufacture, the same not having been known or used by others before his invention or production thereof, or patented or described in any printed publication;" may obtain a patent therefor upon payment of the proper fees, and upon complying with the same requirements as in applying for patents for inventions or discoveries. Where the designs can be sufficiently represented by drawings or photographs, the Commissioner will not require models. Patents for designs will be issued for terms of three years and six months, or for seven years, or for fourteen years, as the applicant may elect. Patent Fees. On filing each original application (except On issuing each original patent (except in design cases) For three years and six months, For seven years, For fourteen years, . $15.00 20.00 10.00 15.00 30.00 For certified copies of patents and other papers, including certified printed copies, per hundred words, .10 For recording every assignment, agreement, power of attorney or other paper, of three hundred words or under, 1.00 Of over three hundred words and under one thou sand, 2.00 Of over one thousand words, For copies of drawings, the reasonable cost of making them. 3.00 Such fees are payable at the Treasury or any Sub-Treasury of the United States, or at any national bank or other depository, designated by the Secretary of the Treasury for that purpose. TRADE-MARKS. A Trade-mark is an arbitrary sign, name or symbol, by which a manufacturer marks his goods and by which they are known in the market as his goods. The right to adopt and use such a mark to the exclusion of its use by all others has long been recognized as a property right, for the violation of which damages may be had, and such further use enjoined. Although a property right, a trade-mark is not a subject of sale apart from the article to which it is applied; but the right to use such trade-mark may be very properly sold incidentally to the sale of the establishment where the article is manufactured. But the trade-mark must be a proper one in itself in order that its owner shall acquire this exclusive right in it. Merely geographical names cannot be thus appropriated—as, for instance, "Lacka |