The Patent Laws-attorney General Devens' Decision

The decisión of the Attorney General regarding the preparation of patents and patent cases, says a Washington telegram, is regarded by Patent-offlce officials as of great importance, as it will affect more or less every manufacturing interest in the country. It renders void letters issuing to two or more persons when but one of them is the inventor. The law clerk of the patent office, Mr. Pierce, said to-day that manufacturera are often induced to buy a patent that is apparently valid, issuing under the seal of thePatent-office, -without stopping to inquire very carefully whether all the requirements of the law have been complied with, presuming that they have been, or the office would not have issued the patent. It chances of tentimes that the office has no means of ascettaining whether the parties were properly joined in making the applioation. Probably one-third of all the cases issued by the Patent-offioe, averaging about 300 a week for years paet, come under the head. and manufacturéis purchasing patents are necessarily vitally interested. As a consequence the decisión will be fought, and there is little doubt that a test of its valid ity will soon be made in the courts. According to the provisión of the Patent law, when a period of two years elapses from the time of the discovery of a vital error in a patent it bccomes public property. As a consequence this decisión will work disaster to very many inventora and their assignees. The records of the patent office show that this decisión, if sustained by the courts, will invalídate between 40,000 and 50,000 live patents. Mr. Pieroe said that it had been pretty well known to the profession that a vital defect of that character existed. The only way, however, in which it could be f ully established would be where there was a litigated case, when the patents would be examined, and the question of inventorship tnoroughly ventilated. So there is no way of telling exactly what particular patents are affected until they pass under the test by litigation.