"Oh, azoleic, sebacic, a few others, I suppose."
"What else other than amino alcohols? What other catalysts? Do you
really need mercury vapor? Will some other metallic vapor do? What about
temperature variations in making the polyester? How long a cure time?
How much ultraviolet? Will the fibers be better if you draw them more?
Can you get those tacky fiber ends in any other way? Can you improve
them? What about the sheet-making conditions? Does oxygen in the air
catalyze...?"
Callahan held up his hands and said, "O.K., O.K., we don't know anything
about it. But we're not going to find out these things until we open a
research program, and we can't open a program for at least six months.
In the meantime that technician may ..."
I held up my hands this time, and he fell quiet. We stood silently until
I asked, "All the information in your notebooks, Henry?"
He nodded, and I continued, "Well, I'll be back tomorrow to talk to you
and Bostick. We'll just have to file a patent application on what we
have."
We chatted a while about his work on the West Coast, and then we shook
hands and I left. I had a few moments to think in the cab before I
talked with Mr. Spardleton. Here I was in that situation that a patent
attorney dreads. I had an incomplete invention, one that required a
great deal of work before it could be filed, yet I had to file now in
the incomplete condition. With it all, here was a most significant
invention, one that would make the world take notice. This was one of
the rare ones, I could feel it in my bones. It was obviously an
industry-founder, a landmark invention on a par with the greatest, even
in its incomplete condition. By golly, I was going to do a job on this
one.
* * *
Mr. Spardleton was in a bad mood when I entered his office. I didn't
have a chance to say a thing before he bellowed at me, "Mr. Saddle, do
you know what a plasticizer is?"
"Why, ah, yes. It is a material, generally a solvent, that softens and
renders another material more flexible."
"That's right." His fist banged on the desk. "Yet here," he waved an
Office Action at me, "is an Examiner who says that the term
'plasticizer' is indefinite, and I must give a list of suitable
plasticizers when he knows that Rule 118 forbids me to put in such a
list. Can you imagine? He is saying in effect that a chemist who works
with synthetic resins does not know what a plasticizer is, and I must
take him by the hand and teach him something he learned in freshman
chemistry. It has nothing to do with the invention, either. I am
claiming a new kind of lens holder, and I point out that the interior of
the holder may be coated if desired with a plasticized synthetic resin
coating. My, I don't know what the Office is coming to. The Patent
Office is the only institution in the world that does not know the
meaning of the phrase 'room temperature'. Some day.... What's the
matter, Mr. Saddle?"
I had pulled up a chair and hunched down in it. Mr. Spardleton
recognized the symptoms. He put down the offending Office Action and
settled back and waited for me to tell him my troubles.
I said, "I've got a hot invention. It is a paper that will replace
cloth, strong, flexible, cheap too. We've only made one version of it,
though, and I have to file an application right away because one of
Callahan's technicians left, and we can't risk waiting."
He nodded, and I went on, describing to him all the details of the
invention and the situation. When I finished I stared morosely at the
floor. Mr. Spardleton said, "What's the problem? File a quick
application now, and later on when you have more information, abandon it
and file a good, full-scale application."
[Illustration]
I looked at him in surprise and said, "But somebody else has just as
much information as we have, and he may start to experiment right away.
That technician knows as much as we do. In another six months they could
file a complete application and beat us out on dates; they'd be first
with the complete application."
"Well, what do you propose to do about it?"
I shrugged. "I'll have to make up as good an application as I can right
now. We'll make some guesses at how the research would go, and put it
in."
"Oh now, look. You don't know"--he began ticking off the points on his
fingers--"if you really need the trialkyl aluminum, or the
mercury-treated glass surface, or the heat, or the radiation, or any
combination of them. You don't have any idea of the conditions that are
necessary to produce this paper."
"I know."
"All you've got is a single example that works. If you make your claims
broader than that one example, the Examiner will reject you for lack of
disclosure. This is basic in patent law. Ex parte Cameron, Rule 71, and
35 U.S.C. 112 will do for a starter."
But I hadn't worked with Mr. Spardleton for nine years for nothing, and
he had taught me how to play this game pretty well. I sat up straighter
in my chair and said, "Yes, but in Ex parte Dicke and Moncrieff the
disclosure of nitric acid as a shrinking agent for yarns was enough to
support a claim for shrinking agents broadly; the claim did not have to
be limited to nitric acid."
"Only because nitric acid was already known to be a shrinking agent for
yarns."