As Representative Kelly said, (p. 1262, Congressional Record, January 11, 1922:)

The business men who are paying the taxes are unanimously for the passage of this bill; the workmen of the country are for it, and it can be put into operation without an additional cent of burden on the Treasury of the United States. I am hopeful that this Congress will see a vision of the possibilities of the Patent Bureau, different from any other bureau of the Government, with its power to set men to work and to put capital to work, and will perform a real public service by encouraging the industries of the country which are bound up in the patent system.

If the patent system is to be saved, relief and quick relief must be given.

"COPY" SITUATION.

Another feature of the Patent Office work needing reorganization, and not cared for by the pending patent relief bill (H. R. 7077) is the "copy situation.

The Patent Office sells monthly about 200,000 printed copies of patents at ten cents per copy, providing revenue of $20,000 per month or about $225,000 per year, all of which is turned into the U. S. Treasury, and is not available for Patent Office use.

These copies, in the first instance, are paid for by the inventors. In other words, the inventor is charged $20 for printing his patent and when his one copy is printed, it costs little more for the Government to print 100 copies at the same time. Thus, out of 100 copies paid for by the inventor's fee, one copy is given to him and the other 99 can be used for office purposes or sold for ten cents each.

Inasmuch as there are about 40,000 patents granted per year, it follows that the Patent Office receives 4,000,000 copies each year.

There are now on hand "in stock" in the Patent Office about 40 millions of these copies, having a sale value of four millions of dollars!!

These copies are kept on wooden shelves in every nook and corner of the building (even in the halls and corridors.)

To make matters worse, hundreds of thousands of the copies are in the top galleries on the upper floor, where, on the wooden shelves, they would be quickly destroyed by fire, as was actually the case with the records stored in these galleries in the disastrous conflagration of 1877.

In addition to the above records there are over 1,400,000 files of patents already granted, of priceless value, since they can not be duplicated.

And these are also on wooden shelves. Certified copies of these original files showing the history of the patent in its course through the process of being patented are used in every patent suit.

These copies and these files should be placed on steel shelves in a fireproof building. Such a building could be erected in the magnificent courtyard of the Patent Office by building an underground structure of iron, concrete, and glass, which could be designed in a manner not to shut out the light and ventilation of the present building.

The attention of the Congress is earnestly called to this need, since the industries of the country would suffer beyond computation should these copies and files be destroyed by fire.

EQUIPMENT.

The overcrowded conditions under which the employees work and the lack of even antiquated filing and office equipment lead me to remind the Congress that the Patent Office, in order to operate efficiently, should have greatly increased office space and should have modern equipment in sufficient quantity to insure that a dollar's worth can be obtained for a dollar spent in salaries. The business of the Office and its records have increased in volume far beyond the capacity of the facilities of this Bureau.

REORGANIZATION.

The administration of this Office has been considerably reorganized in order to make more ef fective its limited personnel. The copies of patents have recently been entirely rearranged, carrying out with great care a well-considered plan which has enormously facilitated the filling of about 100,000 orders weekly for these copies. 427,000 of the patented files have also been rearranged for more efficient handling. The Trade-Mark and Design Division has been divided, with beneficial results to both branches of the service. Other changes include a drastic revision of the method of acknowledging the receipts and keeping the records of applications filed, which has resulted in increased accuracy and efficiency, and has permitted the transfer of several clerks to other overworked divisions. Various other improvements have been instituted which have made it possible for the present force to prevent a breakdown of the Office, but in spite of the increased efficiency the relatively fixed personnel has not been able to cope with the unprecedented volume of work.

Appended hereto and forming a part of this report is a series of tabular and other statistical information, together with a detailed record of administrative features, to which it is desired to call attention.

Respectfully submitted.

THOMAS E. ROBERTSON. Commissioner of Patents.