CHAPTER XVII[ToC]
INVENTIONS AND PATENTS, AND INFORMATION ABOUT
THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF INVENTORS
AND WORKMEN
There is no trade or occupation which calls forth the inventive faculty to a greater degree than the machinist's. Whether it be in the direction of making some new tool, needed in some special work, or in devising a particular movement, or mechanical expedient, the machinist must be prepared to meet the issues and decide on the best structural arrangement.
Opportunities also come daily to the workers in machine shops to a greater extent than other artisans, because inventors in every line bring inventions to them to be built and experimentally tested.
A knowledge of the rights and duties of inventors, and of the men who build the models, is very desirable; and for your convenience we append the following information:
The inventor of a device is he who has conceived an idea and has put it into some concrete form.
A mere idea is not an invention.
The article so conceived and constructed, must[p. 189] be both new and useful. There must be some utility. It may be simply a toy, or something to amuse.
If A has an idea, and he employs and pays B to work out the device, and put it into practical shape, A is the inventor, although B may have materially modified, or even wholly changed it. B is simply the agent or tool to bring it to perfection, and his pay for doing the work is his compensation.
An inventor has two years' time within which he may apply for a patent, after he has completed his device and begun the sale of it. If he sells the article for more than two years before applying for a patent, this will bar a grant.