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Show fcy JambS Preston Convinced that the end of the war will mean more jobs and a big demand for new products, the American inventors and businessmen business-men are swamping the patent office of-fice with applications for patents and requests for printed copies of patents already issued . . . The rate of applications for patents pat-ents is nearly 20 higher than it was last year. In 1944 the number C fnntr. r-,vo rt fori lira C CI VlMlt percent below the peak reached in 1932. The slump was blamed partly on the dprssion, partly on court decisions unfavorable to patent pat-ent holders, and partly on the preoccupation of industry and inventors in-ventors with war work . . . To Improve Procedure . . . Contributing to the rapid rise in patent applications is the fact that forward-looking members of congress have introduced bills to improve patent procedure, and have created a national atmosphere atmos-phere more favorable to invention. GI's on duty in foreign areas also have contributed to interest in patents by their versatility in improvising im-provising tools and implements of war, in addition to all sorts of gadgets for their own comfort . . . On the theory that "patents encourage en-courage invention, and invention makes jobs," some of these wartime war-time inventors are expected to play an important part in pacetime production. If their battlefront inventions in-ventions prove valuable after the war, some of them probably will become manufacturers and may say, like many "boys of "18," "I've got my captain working for me now." ... There is ' considerable demand for an increase in the present staff of the Patent Office. With the number of examiners two-thirds two-thirds of the normal amount on account of the war, the work proceeds pro-ceeds at a rate that means two or three years between application applica-tion for a patent and final issuance issu-ance of the document. Since examiners ex-aminers must hold degrees in both engineering and law, officials fear it will be hard to find recruits unless un-less the government raises salaries. |