Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/48

46 The excess of receipts over expenditures was$154,495.32.

The Commissioner makes several recommendations worthy of special attention. He deems the excess of receipts over expenditures as an unjust tax upon inventors, and favors its reduction either by exacting lower fees or by expending the surplus in improving the facilities for transacting the business of the office. He recommends the latter course. He calls attention to the inadequacy of the rooms provided for the use of the office, and recommends that temporary accommodations be provided in that portion of the building now being reconstructed.

In his opinion, the interest of the service demands an additional force of clerks and examiners, and to this end he recommends that provision be made by law for ten additional clerks of class one, three of class two, two of class three, one of class four, and fifteen assistant examiners. He suggests also that a portion of the surplus revenues of the office be used annually for the purpose of making additions to the technical library of the office, and for increasing the compensation of the clerks and employes, who,while forced to remain in the lower grade because of inadequate appropriations, are showing efficiency entitling them to higher pay.

The Commissioner refers to the present system of preserving models and regards their accumulation as a serious evil, which in time must call for correction. In his opinion, the system is radically defective, and ought without further delay to give place to one more permanent.

The experience of the English demonstrates that drawings which conform to a high standard and show the vital features of an invention are sufficient for such examination as their system requires. There are many inventions which could be better shown by a model than by the most accurate scale-drawing. The right to call for a model should be reserved to the office, but none should be filed unless upon the written certificate of the examiner, or upon the special order of the Commissioner.

To secure this better system, statutory provisions are needed and recommended. To better guard models removed from the office for the purpose of duplication or repair, the Commissioner recommends the enactment of a law authorizing the employment of skilled workmen to make copies of models for official certification, who shall be required to take the oath of office and file bonds, and whose compensation shall be such as may be approved by the Commissioner of Patents, to be paid by those for whom the work was performed.

The Commissioner calls attention to the necessity of some provision being made by which the testimony of foreigners required in proceedings in the Patent Office, and taken in foreign countries, may be subject to the pains and penalties of perjury. This cannot be secured, or even asked, from foreign governments unless proffered by our own. Recommendation is therefore made that a law be passed authorizing the execution