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[Illustration: A GOOD PATENT, PROPERLY HANDLED, IS A STEPPING STONE TO
SUCCESS AND FORTUNE.]
PRACTICAL
POINTERS _for_ PATENTEES
CONTAINING VALUABLE INFORMATION
AND ADVICE ON THE SALE
OF PATENTS
AN ELUCIDATION OF THE BEST METHODS
EMPLOYED BY THE MOST SUCCESSFUL INVENTORS
IN HANDLING THEIR INVENTIONS
_By_
F. A. CRESEE, M.E.
Revised and Corrected, with New Forms and Tables of Population
of the United States in Accordance with the 1910 Census
[Illustration]
MUNN & CO., INC.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN OFFICE
361 Broadway
NEW YORK
1912
_Copyright, 1901, by the_
POTOMAC PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Copyright, 1902, by_
MUNN & COMPANY
_Copyright, 1906, by_
MUNN & COMPANY
_Copyright, 1912, by_
MUNN & CO., Inc.
New York
MACGOWAN & SLIPPER
30 Beekman Street
PREFACE
The original conception and working out of an invention is usually a
labor of love on the part of the inventor: having perfected his
invention in every detail, he finds able and skilled counsel waiting to
prepare and prosecute his application for patent before the Patent
Office Examiner. When the patent is allowed or issued, the patentee's
real work begins--that of turning the patent into money. This is the
business end of the inventor's work, which is generally to his interest
financially to undertake himself, or to have under his immediate
supervision.
The object of this little work, based upon the experience and
observation of the author and other successful inventors, is to give the
patentee such information and advice as will enable him to proceed more
intelligently, on the most successful and economical basis, to realize
from his invention.
The American Government issues annually over thirty-five thousand
patents, a large number of which are offered for sale by their
respective patentees, who in many cases have no definite lines to pursue
in negotiating their patents; many realizing little or nothing from
their inventions through careless or bad management, while others,
through incompetency, drift into the hands of unscrupulous
patent-selling agents only to be swindled.
The numerous inquiries from patentees seeking practical, reliable, and
up-to-date information as to the best and most successful methods of
realizing from the product of their ingenuity, has led the author, after
due deliberation, to prepare and present this work to the American
inventor, with a view of supplying a long-felt want, with the hope that
it will save them many expensive experiments in handling their patents,
and advance them on the road to success.
It has been the endeavor of the writer to cover briefly every subject
that is usually encountered by patentees in disposing of their patents,
not only in the matter of selling, but also in the equally important and
perplexing questions of arriving at the value of patents, legal forms,
statistics, etc., etc.
Realizing that the work may be deficient in many respects, the hope that
it will prove instructive, and the belief that it contains many
practical pointers for patentees is still entertained by
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
DEMAND FOR INVENTIONS OF MERIT.
PAGE
Monopoly in Patents--Industrial Progress Based upon
the Patent System 9-12
CHAPTER II.
INCOME FROM INVENTIONS.
Independence through Successful Invention--Unprofitable
Patents--Money in Patents--Business Capacity
of the Inventor--Inventions as a Poor Man's Opportunity
to Advance 13-19
CHAPTER III.
SECURING CAPITAL.
Danger in an Undivided Interest--A Better Plan--Form
of Agreement--Perfecting Inventions--Exhibit
of Inventions--To Avoid Being "Squeezed"--Value
of Record of Invention--Newspaper Notoriety 20-29
CHAPTER IV.
HOW TO ARRIVE AT THE VALUE OF A PATENT.
Pecuniary Value--Commercial Value--Basis for
Estimation--General Rules for Valuation--How Rating for
Royalty Is Figured--Stock in Stock Companies--Prices
for Territorial Rights--Valuation Tables 30-40
CHAPTER V.
HOW TO CONDUCT THE SALE OF PATENTS.
Patent-selling Agencies--The Best Selling Agent--In
Case the Patentee Cannot Undertake the Selling--Methods
of Selling Patents--About Advertising--How
to Write an Advertisement--Correspondence as
a Means of Bringing Patents before Interested
Parties--How to Correspond with
Manufacturers--Circulars--Illustrations--About
Getting up Circulars--Copies of Patents, How to
Secure--Uses of Printed Copies--First
Impressions All--important--Value of Models--Working
Drawings 41-54
CHAPTER VI.
HOW TO CONDUCT THE SALE OF PATENTS.--_Continued_.
Value of Personal Influence--Personal Solicitation
Advisable--Selling Outright--Assigning an Undivided
Interest--Dividing a Patent into Different Classes of
Rights--Granting Licenses--Placing upon
Royalty--Manufacturing and Forming Companies--To
Organize Stock Companies--Trading as a Last Resort 55-72
CHAPTER VII.
CANADIAN PATENTS.
About Canadian Patents--Selling Canadian Patents--
Population of Canadian Cities 73-78
CHAPTER VIII.
DECISIONS AND NOTES.
Assignments--Territorial Grants--Licenses--Patent
Title--Rules of Practice--Assignments--Assignees--
Grantees--Mortgages--Licensees--Must be Recorded--
Conditional Assignments--State Laws on
Selling Patents 79-91
CHAPTER IX.
THE TRANSFER OF PATENT RIGHTS.
Assignee, Grantee, and Licensee Defined--The Language
of Law--Assignment of Entire Interest in
Letters Patent--Assignment of an Undivided Interest--Grant
of a Territorial Interest--License; Shop
Right--License; Non-exclusive, with Royalty--License;
Exclusive, with Royalty 92-105
CHAPTER X.
TABLES AND STATISTICS.
Map of the United States--Official Census of the United
States by Counties for 1910--Population of
Cities of the United States--Number, Acreage
and Value of Farms, by States--Table of
Occupations 106-141
INDEX 142-146
PRACTICAL POINTERS _for_ PATENTEES
CHAPTER I
DEMAND FOR INVENTIONS OF MERIT
That there is a demand for inventions of merit which can be readily
disposed of at a reasonable profit to the inventor, there can be no
doubt. There perhaps never was a time in the history of our country when
the demand for meritorious inventions was so great as the present. The
conveniences of mankind, in all his varied vocations and callings,
require continual changes and improvements in the apparatuses and
implements used in order to save time, labor, and expense, and to keep
pace with the never-ceasing progress of civilization.
At no time in the past has there been so deep an interest manifested by
the public generally in the inventions of our bright-minded men and
women, and at no time has capital been more readily interested and ready
to invest in any practical improvement which can offer a fair chance of
monopoly under the patent laws.
Business men, capitalists, and manufacturers are ever on the alert for
new and desirable inventions, which will supersede in utility those
which are already on the market. By purchasing such inventions, they
secure novelties which will not only enable them to avoid the keen
competition and to a great extent monopolize the trade in their own
respective lines of business, but also to make sales more easily, and
thus make their business more profitable.
[Sidenote: Monopoly in Patents.]
Every well-informed person knows that a monopoly is the desideratum of
business men. The monopoly or protection of an industry afforded by the
patent laws is, perhaps, the one monopoly that directly benefits the
world. Were it not for the protection and monopoly offered inventors by
governments, for a certain number of years, to disclose their
inventions, inventors would simply keep them secret, or if used at all,
would do so only in such a manner as would prevent the world at large
from learning of or utilizing them, thus debarring the public as a whole
from their benefits. This monopoly in patents has had much to do with
the material progress of the world during the century just ended.
Anyone having a monopoly of a good trade article is assured of a
fortune. If capitalists and manufacturers can secure the control of any
new invention of merit for their sole use and purposes, which can be
manufactured and sold more cheaply than those now on the market, and
which will perform its work in a quicker and better manner than the
devices now in use, they will be only too willing to pay patentees
handsomely for patents covering such inventions.
There are numerous staple articles of commerce whose manufacture is open
to all, and which every mercantile house in the country is handling at a
profit, notwithstanding the great number engaged in their manufacture
and sale in every section of the country. Now, if there can be supplied
some better or cheaper article in any line of industry, the firm or
person who secures the monopoly of its manufacture and sale, simply
controls the market, and human endurance and energy are the only limits
to the degree of profits such a firm or person can secure from the
manufacture and sale of such an article, if adequately protected by a
valid patent.
[Sidenote: Industrial Progress Based on the Patent System.]
In an official report the Commissioner of Patents clearly sets forth
that from six to seven eighths of the entire manufacturing capital of
the United States is either directly or indirectly based upon patents.
This vast amount of money, upward of six thousand millions of dollars,
continually employing great armies of people, in industries based upon
patents of every class, supplies the country with improved articles of
every description. It has been well said that, "Patents and trade go
hand in hand."
The largest and most opulent manufacturers in the country will be found
to be the heaviest owners of patents, developers of inventions, and
patrons of the Patent Office. While all inventions are not telegraphs,
telephones, sewing-machines, or electric lights; nor can all business
houses be Westinghouses, Hoes, McCormicks, Bells, or Edisons, yet all
over this country, and others as well, there are springing up a great
number of moderately large growing firms who, ever on the alert for
success, devise or secure control of some valuable patent, by which they
can successfully invade and control to a certain extent particular lines
of industry.
Nearly every leading factory in the world owes its commencement and
success to the prestige and protection afforded by the possession of a
good and valid patent.