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Show Washington Snapshots i The Chinese ambassador sat at the speakers' table at a state dinner din-ner in Washington. "How is it that the Chinese, whose inventors are often credited credit-ed with creating gunpowder, paper, pa-per, printing, and other inventions centuries ago, never ibecome a great industrial nation?" asked an American. "The reason is that we had no patent system," the ambassador replied. "Hence the inquiring mind of the Chinese had no incentives to do more than inquire." What the ambassador knew is unknown to many Americans. For that reason the patents and research re-search committee of the National Association of Manufacturers has organized a series of area seminars semin-ars to dramatize the patent system's sys-tem's contribution to the nation's abundance. The first of these seminars was held recently in Cleveland. Others will be announced soon. The object is to acquaint manufacturers, manu-facturers, their staffs, and scientific scien-tific and technical students, with the nature of the patent system and the use of patents and research resear-ch in pioneering new products and improving old ones to benefit American consumers. Members of the NAM committee find that many manufacturers share public apathy to attacks on the patent system. By driving home what patents on household articles, machines, tools, and implements im-plements have done and are doing to enrich life in America, it is hoped hop-ed to make the public realize the important stake it has in the protection pro-tection of the patent sysem. |