few, if any, who
have suffered more from the great delays lately obtaining at that
institution than myself, particularly in connection with taking out
foreign patents for the same inventions, and so timing the issue of
them here and abroad as not to prejudice either one. But great as the
annoyance and cost have been in consequence of these delays, I would
infinitely prefer that it were ten times as great, rather than see the
examinations for novelty abolished by the United States Patent
Office; and, so far as I know and believe, in this preference I most
completely voice that of inventors in general.

JOHN T. HAWKINS.
Taunton, Mass., March 28th, 1885.

The writer of the above communication gives a very clear statement of
our original premises. He sees as we do the difficulty, every year
on the increase, of making satisfactory searches in the matter of
novelty. But his deductions vary from ours. To us it appears on its
face an impossibility for satisfactory searches to be made in the case
of every individual patent by the Patent Office. The examinations
have repeatedly been proved valueless. We know by our own and
others' experience that the searches as at present conducted are of
comparatively little accuracy. Patents are declared to be anticipated
continually by our courts. The awarding of a patent in fact weighs for
nothing in a judge's mind as proving its originality. The Commissioner
of Patents is really exhausting the energies of the Office employees
over a multitude of searches that have no standing whatever in
court, and that no lawyer would accept as any guarantee of novelty
of invention. If every inventor would search the records for his own
benefit, we should then have twenty thousand examiners instead of the
present small number. This would be something. But if it be advanced
that the inventor is not a competent searcher, then he can engage an
expert to do it for him. Every day, searches of equal value to the
Patent Office ones are executed for but a fraction of the government
fees on granting a patent.

Our correspondent speaks of an evil that he thinks would be incidental
to the system we proposed in our article criticised by him, namely,
that were the Patent Office to make no search an inventor would "run
every risk of being beaten in the courts should any one essay
to contest his claims." The fact is that in spite of the Office
examination for nov