Page:Reciprocity in respect to patents and patent rights. A scheme for the consideration of the International American congress (IA reciprocityinres00seel).pdf/6

 claims to invention being closely defined and submitted to the severest scrutiny of a body of trained examiners.

These features of our system are the result of its development for a century. They involve an abrupt departure from the system of granting patents which prevails in Europe, and, since their adoption by Canada, have become known as the American system. Under it a patent goes forth with a practical guaranty of the novelty of the invention. It may be vitiated, but only by the discovery of new evidence against novelty, or by the discovery that, notwithstanding his oath, the applicant was not the true and first inventor.

Another feature of the United States patent system is that the patent, once granted, is subject to no subsequent conditions to keep it in force for its full term. The Constitution of the United States recognizes that invention is to be encouraged for the promotion of the useful arts, and that the way to encourage it is by securing to the inventor the benefit of his invention for a limited time. Under this doctrine a United States patent is not in spirit a grant from the sovereign, but is a contract between the sovereign and the inventor, whereby in consideration of the protection given him for a term of years he agrees to give to the public the full benefit of his invention at the expiration of that term. This is the sole consideration, and as it was regarded just in theory, so it has been found expedient in practice. Hence the issue of a patent is accompanied by no imposition of annual or other dues, no obligation to work the invention, no binding or harassing conditions whatever. The sole pecuniary benefit derived by the Government is in the fees paid in to the Patent Office with the application, which are the estimated reasonable compensation for the actual work done by the office for the patentee.

It is to be particularly noticed that under the United States patent law prior public use of an invention in a foreign country is not a bar to the grant of the patent. Nor is the fact that the invention has been previously patented in a foreign country a bar to the grant to the inventor if applied for during the life of his foreign patent. Even the fact that the invention has been known and used in this country will not bar the grant if the application for patent is made within two years from the beginning of public use. Everything in the law favors the inventor who introduces his invention to the people of the United States. He may have patented it first abroad, be may