What Chemist Should Do About Patents

WHAT TO DO is probably the most important question for chemists in connection with patents, yet this subject seems to be new. To formulate an answer or even a series of opinions requires looking both backward and forward. The chemist, first of all, should locate the point at which he personally stands on the graph of invention and progress. Thus located, he may judge whether he is arriving on the field too late and visualize the limitation or scope of his opportunities. He may start his mental graph near the end of the previous century. A Commissioner of Patents then surveyed the past, forecast the future, and reported that the work of the Patent Office would probably decline because most inventions had already been made. The commissioner was no doubt aware of the advances in such patented articles as improved butter churns that graced the farm homes of the nation, barbed wire that fenced the ...