PATENT OFFICE, EXAMINERS IN.
Upon the reorganization of the patent office, in 1836, under the act of July 4 of that year, a new and important principle was in troduced. Prior to that date, any one was at liberty to take out his patent for almost any contrivance, if he was willing to pay the fees. At least, this was the practical opera tion of the system ; for although a patent was not granted until it was allowed by cer tain heads of departments, still, as the exami nation in such cases went no further than merely to ascertain whetber the contrivance was of sufficient importance to be worthy of a patent, without any inquiry as to who was the first inventor thereof, the allowance of the patent was rather a xuatter of course in almost every case. The applicant, at his own peril, decided for himself whether the subject-matter of the patent was new. If it was not so, the patent would be of no value, as it could never be enforced. The question of novelty could be raised whenever an action for infringement was brought ; or a proceed ing might be directly instituted to test the validity of the patent, and to annul it if the patentee was found not to he the original and first inventor. The law in these re spects was like that of England and most other European countries.
But the act of 1836 provided for a, tho rough examination of every application, with a view of ascertaining whether the contri vance thus shown was novel as well as use ful : so that no patent should issue which would not be su,stained by the courts. In theory, this was to be done by the commis sioner of patents ; but the amount of busi ness on his hands was such, even then, as to render it impossible for him to perform all that labor in person ; and provision was ac cordingly made by law for au examining clerk to assist him in these examinations.
At present, so greatly has the amount of this labor become augmented that nearly thirty of these assistants are kept constantly and industriously employed, all of whom are known as examiners in the patent office.
The duty of these examiners is to deter mine whether the subject-matter of the re spective patents which are applied for had been invented or discovered by any other person in this country, or had been patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, prior to the al leged invention thereof by the applicant. If not, and the invention is deemed useful within the meaning of the patent law, a patent is allowed, unless it clearly appears that the invention has been abandoned to the public. If the invention has been in public use more than two years with the consent and allowance of the inventor, that single circum stance amounts to a statutory abandonment of the invention ; although it may be aban doned in various other methods. But, unless the fact of abandonment is very clear, the office does not assume to decide against the applicant, hut leaves the matter to a court and jury. See PATENTS, and PATENT OFFICE.