Inventing for Boys

by A. Frederick Collins

Interference.—As if all these trials and tribulations are not enough it often occurs in the course of a pending patent that some one applies for a patent on the same, or nearly the same, invention as your own.

When this happens the patent examiner declares an interference, the purpose of which purports to be to show which applicant is the first, or real inventor.

When interference proceedings are begun you will have to make under oath a preliminary statement showing when you first conceived the idea of your invention, when you first explained it to some one else, when you made your first drawings of it and when you constructed a model of it; all of which shows the importance of keeping a record of each step of your invention and of having them frequently attested.

These sworn statements by yourself and your opponent are passed upon by the examiner of interferences and if either you or your opponent are not satisfied with his findings either one of you may take an appeal to the board of examiners-in-chief, and from this board to the Commissioner of Patents and finally, to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.

And don’t forget that all these proceedings and appeals are as meat and drink to the patent lawyers and that you and your opponent are contributing all of the money in exchange for a lot of red tape that ought to be abolished.

When Your Patent is Granted.—But some bright morning you will receive a government document printed on vellum, showing a picture of the patent office at the top and signed by the Commissioner of Patents at the bottom, the whole being tied together with a pair of baby blue ribbons and to the ends of which is affixed a red seal bearing the imprint of the Patent Office of the United States of America, and at last you have your patent. The front cover of a patent granted to your humble servant is shown in the frontispiece.

After Your Patent is Granted.—But after you have this valuable grant conferred by the government in your possession which is alleged to give you a monopoly on your invention for a period of 17 years you have only started on your career as patentee, for about the next thing that will happen, if your invention is worth anything and you are manufacturing and marketing it, you will find that some one else is making and selling exactly the same thing.

He may or may not have a patent on the article or machine and it—the patent—may or may not be remotely like yours but this doesn’t in the least matter, he will keep right on working your invention and infringing your patent until you will either have to sue him, or continue to lose large profits that should be yours and perhaps be driven out of the business entirely.

So, of course, you see your patent attorney and he, of course, advises you to begin suit at once. It sounds to your abused ears like right and justice but it means an outlay of much time and more money than you could begin to think of unless you have been through the mill before.

This time you will have to engage patent counsel—no mere patent attorney will do if you are to win—and you must have experts to testify for you and your patent cause—it is no longer called a patent case—and testify against your opponent. The only limit to the fee that able patent counsel will demand and collect is fixed by your bank account while $100 per day is the usual fee of a technical expert though like his legal ally he will ask and get much more if you can afford it.