The majority of the patentees sent in duplicates of their papers and models, but many were never heard from, and for this reason the office is unable to present a complete record of the grants. After the fire, the business of the Office was conducted in the City Hall building until the present building was erected for the Patent-Office, a few years later. In 1849, the Office was placed under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior or Home Department, where it now remains.
The fostering of invention encouraged home manufactures, one of the results most eagerly sought, after the war with Great Britain. So active became the inventive genius and so prolific of results, that Congress was compelled, from time to time, to increase the examining corps, and the little band of seven persons, who occupied the contracted rooms in the City Hall, has expanded into a corps of eighty examiners and assistants, more than two hundred clerks and other officials, all under the control of a Commissioner and an Assistant-Commissioner.
The grant of one thousand patents in 1836, when the office was first regularly organized, has enlarged into one hundred and sixty thousand at the present time. And the latter number is scarcely two-thirds of the number of applications. With this enormous increase followed a corresponding labor and intricacy in examining so large a number of applications, but so perfectly has the system been developed, that very few mistakes are made in the way of wrongfully granting patents.
Hon. S. S. Fisher, United States Commissioner of Patents, before the American Institute, New York City, September 28, 1869, made an eloquent address concerning the American system of granting patents, from which I make the following extracts:
“The great Patent Act of 1836 established what is now distinctively the American system in regard to the grant of letters-patent.
“In the Patent-office, under the act of 1836, the Commissioner and one examining-clerk were thought to be sufficient to do the work of examining into the patentability of the two or three hundred that were offered; now sixty-two examiners are over-crowded with work, a force of over three hundred employes is maintained, and the applications have swelled to over twenty thousand per annum. This year the number of patents granted will average two hundred and seventy-five per week, or fourteen thousand a year.
“In England and on the Continent all applications are patented without examination into the novelty of the inventions claimed. In some instances the instrument is scanned to see if it cover a patentable subject matter, and in Prussia some examination is made into the character of the new idea; but in no case are such appliances provided, such a corps of skilled examiners, such a provision of drawings, models, and books, such a collection of foreign patents, and such checks to prevent and review error, as with us. As a result, an American patent has in our courts a value that no foreign patent can acquire in the courts of its own country.
“The foreign patents of American inventors, that have been copies of patents previously granted in this country, are the best that are granted abroad. Many an English or French invention, that has been patented without difficulty there, has been stopped in its passage through our office by a reference to some patent previously granted in this country. In spite of our examination, which rejects over one-third of all the applications that are made, invention has been stimulated by the hope of protection; and nearly as many patents will issue in the United States this year as in the whole of Europe put together, including the British Isles. But a few days ago I took up a volume of Italian patents, when I was amused and gratified to find on every page the name of the universal Yankee, re-patenting there his American invention. He is, I suspect, much the best customer in the Patent Office of United Italy.
“We are an inventive people. Invention is by no means confined to our mechanics. Our merchants invent, our soldiers and our sailors invent, our school-masters invent, our professional men invent, aye, our women and children invent. One man, lately, wished to patent the application of the Lord’s Prayer, repeated in a loud tone of voice, to prevent stammering; another claimed the new and useful attachment of a weight to a cow’s tail, to prevent her from switching it while milking; another proposed to cure worms by extracting by a delicate line and tiny hook, baited with a seductive pill; while a lady patented a crimping-pin, which she declared might also be used as a paper-cutter, as a skirt-supporter, as a paper-file, as a child’s pin, as a bouquet-holder, as a shawl-fastener, or as a book-mark. Do not suppose that this is the highest flight that the gentle sex has achieved. It has obtained many other patents, some of which have no relation to wearing apparel, and are of considerable value.