HOW CONGRESS PROPOSES TO ROB INVENTORS AND PATENTEES.

HOW CONGRESS PROPOSES TO ROB INVENTORS AND PATENTEES.

Much anxiety is felt by inventors and owners of patents concerning what is believed to be a settled determination on the part of a considerable number of members of the present Congress to enact laws that will virtually destroy the value of property in patents by taking away from them the legal protection they now have, and actually encouraging infringement and open robbery. The excuse offered for the proposed action is the admitted desirability of instituting such reform as will put a stop to vexatious and almost blackmailing suits brought against innocent purchasers of infringements upon patented articles, the protection of which by patent has not been matter of public knowledge until the infringements have had time to pass into common use. Under the guise of protecting such innocent purchasers two bills have already passed the House (Nos. 3925 and 3934), which, if they become laws, will have the effect of making legal prosecution of infringements so costly, vexatious and ineffective that owners of patents will be almost helpless. Even worse bills are, however, those now pending in the Senate. A gentleman largely interested in patent righ s, speaking as a representative of the feeling of many thousands of inventors, patentees and licensed users of patent inventions, said yesterday, in explanation of the bills pending :

“众议院法案的规定弧,patentee must give bonds to pay all costs of an infringement suit before beginning it, and must pay them, although he gains the suit, if he is awarded less than $20 damages. He must also pay, in addition to the costs, a fee of $50 to the defendant’s attorney in case the defendant by any means gains the suit. The user of an infringement is held not to be liable to prosecution, but simply the manufacturer or vender. Even if the patentee wins his suit against the user of an infringement made by himself or his employee for his own benefit, and not to use in manufacture of articles for sale, the measure of recovery must be simply a license fee, to be fixed by the jury, and not by the patentee, whose property is thus valued for him and disposed of without his consent.