Salt Lake Tribune | 1913-10-07 | Page 2 | "Joker" Discovered by Commissioner

"JOKER" DISCOVERED BY COMMISSIONER Kahn Bill to Protect Patents on Foreign For-eign Exhibits at Exposition Needs Amendment. WASHINGTON, Oct. 6. Discovery of a "joker" that might cost American Amer-ican manufacturers millions of dollars in tho Kuhu bill recently passed by congress, to protect patents on foreign exhibits at the Panama-Pacific exposition, expo-sition, has caused the state department to withhold formal notification of the enactment of the law, pending an effort ef-fort to have it amended. Under the terms of tho act, holders of foreign patents have only to register regis-ter their certificates at the branch office of-fice of tho United States commissioner of patents on the exposition grounds to secure full protection for their articles or designs in this country until throe years after tho close of tno exposition. This was supposed to be a harmless and desirablo provision, but Commissioner Commis-sioner of Patents TSwing declaros it radically changes existing patent laws and places in tho hands of anybody who may care to take advantage of it tho power to squeczo out of American manufacturers and designers an incalculable incal-culable amount of money. For a nominal fee, it is said, anybody any-body so inclined could obtain a certificate certifi-cate from a foreign office of ownership owner-ship of any article or design commonly used in this country or of any unparented unpar-ented article produced by scores of American manufacturers. Once the certificate was registered at the exposition expo-sition grounds it would give the holder the power to compel all who might be producing tho article or design to pay him damages and royalties precisely as if a patent had been issued to him in this country. An amendment to eliminate the possibility pos-sibility of such a thing being attempted will be introduced in congress at once.