Practical Pointers for Patentees

Revised and Corrected, with New Forms and Tables of Population of the United States in Accordance with the 1910 Census 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 p. 4 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.,…