Inventing for Boys

by A. Frederick Collins

And when you ask a patent attorney of this ilk to make a free search for you he will write back a letter in this tone of voice: I have very carefully considered your sketch, etc., etc. The first payment of fees necessary to start your case is $20 and upon receipt of this amount I will be very glad to carry the case forward, etc., etc.

All patent attorneys who advertise that they will make a search for you free of charge will also make what they call a special search for which they charge $5.00, and any other patent attorney will make one for the same price and which is, after all is said and done, only a preliminary search.

You can buy a copy of any patent that has been issued by sending 5 cents in coin—the government won’t take its own stamps—to the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C., that is if you know the number and date of it and the name of the inventor to whom it was granted. The patent attorney who makes the preliminary search will send you several copies of the patents nearest like your drawing without extra charge as these are, or should be, included in your $5.00 fee.

When you get the copies of these patents go over each one carefully and see how nearly the pictures are like yours; then read the description of the invention, or specification as it is called, and compare it with your own statement, and, finally study the claims at the end of the specification and pick them to pieces for in these are to be found what has really been allowed to the inventor by the patent office.

The patents found by the patent attorney in making a preliminary search of the files and which are sent to you does not by any means represent the whole state of the art, but they serve a useful purpose as a starter. The reason it is not complete is because the patents are usually selected by patent attorneys in virtue of their similarity to the drawings you have submitted to him. Sometimes, to be sure, he reads what the specification says and if he is a real good patent attorney he will sift out a few of the claims, though this is usually due to his patent training rather than to any conscientious desire on his part to get at all the facts in the case.

But when you have applied for a patent on your alleged new and useful improvement and it is being scrutinized by the examiner in the patent office, he will look up the state of the art in all its devious ramifications for this is what he is paid to do by the people of the United States, though he thinks it is the officials in Washington who employ him. At any rate he has plenty of time to do it in and ample assistance to do it with.

Nor does he merely take a glance at the drawings, specifications and claims of your patent application and compare them casually with others that have been granted along the same line of endeavor, but, instead, when enough pressure is brought to bear, he will look up everything that has ever been published in all languages, including the barbaric ro,[1] since Adam was a boy.

At other times and for no reason at all, or so it seems, he will of a verity go to sleep on the job in his sub-cellar and let an application slip through his room in a few months, while he will spend years on another application of the same kind. Of course if you are the fortunate one you will be glad to get a patent granted so easily; your patent attorney is glad because he has your money in his pocket and the examiner is glad because he has made a friend of his glad.

To have everybody glad is a nice thing, you will allow, but don’t crow too soon for there is a hole in the average patent big enough to drive a horse and wagon through. If your patent is for an invention of genuine merit you will not be alone very long in the field and should you commence to make anything that looks like real money out of it you will find some other genius with an invention and a patent, as like yours as the other Siamese twin and if you don’t sue him he will sue you and then you can fight it out in the courts.

Even as right is always on the side of the army with the heaviest artillery, if there are enough shells, so, too, justice is always on the side of the inventor who has the smoothest patent attorney and the cleverest experts if they have enough ammunition in the way of some claims. While it requires skill to draw up good claims they can in any case be made better where the state of the art is known by yourself and your patent attorney.