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Patent Office Procedure

Patents are issued in the name of the United States, and under the seal of the Patent Office, to any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, not known or used by others in this country, and not patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, before his invention or discovery thereof, and not in public use, or on sale for more than two years prior to his application, unless the same is proved to have been abandoned; and by any person who, by his own industry, genius, efforts, and expense has invented and produced any new and original design for a manufacture, bust, statue, alto-relievo, or bas-relief; any new and original design for the printing of woolen, silk, cotton, or other fabrics; any new and original impression, ornament, pattern, print, or picture to be printed, painted, cast, or otherwise placed on or worked into any article of manufacture; or any new, useful, and original shape or configuration of any article of manufacture, the same not having been known nor used by others before his invention or production thereof, nor patented, nor described in any printed publication, upon the payment of the fees required by law and other due proceedings had. Every patent contains a grant to the patentee, his heirs or assigns, for the term of seventeen years, of the exclusive right to make, use, and vend the invention or discovery throughout the United States and the Territories, referring to the specification for the particulars thereof.

If it appear that the inventor, at the time of making his application, believed himself to be the first inventor or discoverer, a patent will not be refused on account: of the invention, or discovery, or any part thereof, having been known or used in any foreign country before his invention or discovery thereof, if it had not been before patented or described in any printed publication.

Joint inventors are entitled to a joint patent; neither can claim one separately. Independent inventors of distinct and independent improvements in the same machine cannot obtain a joint patent for their separate inventions; nor does the fact that one furnishes the capital, and another makes the invention, entitle them to make application as joint inventors; but in such case they may become joint patentees. The receipt of letters patent from a foreign government will not prevent the inventor from obtaining a patent in the United States, unless the invention shall have been introduced into public use in the United States more than two years prior to the application. But every patent granted for an invention which has been previously patented by the same inventor in a foreign country will be so limited as to expire at the same time with the foreign patent, or, if there be more than one, at the same time with the one having the shortest unexpired term, but in no case will it be in force more than seventeen years.

APPLICATIONS.

Application for a patent must be made in writing to the Commissioner of Patents. The applicant must also file in the Patent Office a written description of the same, and of the manner and process of making, constructing, compounding, and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it appertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make, construct, compound, and use the same ; and in case of a machine, he must explain the principle thereof, and the best mode in which he has contemplated applying that principle, so as to distinguish it from other inventions, and particularly point out and distinctly claim the part, improvement, or combination which he claims as his invention or discovery. The specification and claim must be signed by the inventor and attested by two witnesses.

When the nature of the case admits of drawings, the applicant must furnish one copy signed by the inventor or his attorney in fact, and attested by two witnesses, to be filed in the Patent Office. In all cases which admit of representation by model, the applicant, if required by the Commissioner, shall furnish a model of convenient size to exhibit advantageously the several parts of the invention or discovery. The applicant shall make oath that he verily believes himself to be the original and first inventor or discoverer of the art, machine, manufacture, composition, or improvement for which he solicits a patent; that he does not know and does not believe that the same was ever before known or used, and shall state of what country he is a citizen. Such oath may be made before any person within the United States authorized by law to administer oaths, or, when the applicant resides in a foreign country, before any minister, chargé d'affaires, consul, or commercial agent, holding commission under the government of the United States, or before any notary public of the foreign country in which the applicant may be. On the filing of such application and the payment of the fees required by law, if, on such examination, it appears the claimant is justly entitled to a patent under the law, and that the same is sufficiently useful as well as important, the Commissioner will issue a patent therefor. ASSIGNMENTS.

Every patent or any interest therein shall be assignable in law by an instrument in writing; and the patentee or his assigns or legal representatives may, in like manner, grant and convey an exclusive right under his patent to the whole or any specified part of the United States.

REISSUES.

A reissue is granted to the original patentee, his legal representatives, or the assignees of the entire interest when, by reason of a defective or insufficient specification, or by reason of the patentee claiming as his invention or discovery more than he had a right to claim as new, the original patent is inoperative or invalid, provided the error has arisen from inadvertence, accident, or mistake, and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention. In the cases of patents issued and assigned prior to July 8, 1870, the applications for reissue may be made by the assignees; but in the cases of patents issued or assigned since that date, the applications must be made and the specifications sworn to by the inventors, if they be living. CAVEATS.

A caveat, under the patent law, is a notice given to the office of the caveator's ⚫claim as inventor, in order to prevent the grant of a patent to another for the same alleged invention upon an application filed during the life of a caveat without notice to the caveator. e Any citizen of the United States who has made a new invention or discovery, and desires further time to mature the same, may, on payment of a fee of ten dollars, file in the Patent Office a caveat setting forth the object and the distinguishing characteristics of the invention, and praying protection of his right until he shall have matured his invention. Such caveat shall be filed in the confidential archives of the office and preserved in secrecy, and shall be operative for the term of one year from the filing thereof.

An alien has the same privilege, if he has resided in the United States one year next preceding the filing of his caveat, and has made oath of his intention to become a citizen.

The caveat must comprise a specification, oath, and, when the nature of the case admits of it, a drawing, and, like the application, must be limited to single invention or improvement. FEES.

Fees must be paid in advance, and are as follows: On filing each original application for a patent, $15. On issuing each original patent, $20. In design cases: For three years and six months, $10; for seven years, $15; for fourteen years, $30. On filing each caveat, $10. On every application for the reissue of a patent, $30. On filing each disclaimer, $10. For certified copies of patents and other papers in manuscript, ten cents per hundred words; for certified copies of printed patents, eighty-five cents. For recording every assignment, agreement, power of attorney, or other paper, of three hundred words or under, $1; of over three hundred and under one thousand words, $2; of over one thousand words, $3. For copies of drawings, the reasonable cost of making them. 39,696 Number of applications for design patents....