or other unforeseen circumstance. In this bill, the extensions are limited to a certain class of patents, but they are not limited to those that were affected by the war, the bill applies to patents that were affected by any unforeseen circumstance which may arise in the future. Mr. KEATING. You mean, this one, 1984?

Mr. FEDERICO. 1984. It is broader than the war period. It includes other periods of national emergency or other unforeseen circumstances.

Mr. KEATING. Now, suppose you address yourself to the bill that was limited to the war situation. Then what would you have to say about it?

Mr. FEDERICO. Well, if it is limited to the war situation it extends the patents of all persons that were affected by the war. The general principles which were mentioned apply to this situation. There is no more reason for Congress to provide relief for patent owners who are unable to use their patents because of conditions growing out of the war than to provide relief for owners of other kinds of property, such as a factory, a store, or other business, that suffered losses due to the war, due to shortages of materials or other causes arising from the

war.

Mr. KEATING. Except as Congress has within its power to do so, it might not be said to have the equivalent power with respect to the ordinary grocery storekeeper or somebody who was also affected by the

war.

Mr. FEDERICO. That may be true. The Congress would have full power to provide for the extension of the patents in such cases.

Mr. KEATING. In other words, it might be argued that if we could alleviate a portion of the hardship of the war, why should we not do so, even though we could not go all the way to alleviate the hardship suffered by everyone?

Mr. FEDERICO. That is the important question.

Mr. LEWIS. This goes beyond that, though.

Mr. FEDERICO. Yes, but the question was limited to the bill as applied to the war only. Such a question involves, should there be insurance by the Government against all war losses in connection with patents.

Mr. LEWIS. Not only war losses but any other kind, anything else that caused the loss of the patent rights.

Mr. FEDERICO. That would be the other aspects of the bill. In its broad aspect, this bill corresponds to the law that existed from 1836 to 1861, where any person that suffered inability to obtain compensation from his patent was given the privilege of applying for an extension.

Mr. BRYSON. This bill seeks to safeguard the patentee from acts of God and the public enemy, does it not?

Mr. FEDERICO. Oh, yes. It is very broad; or any unforeseen circumstance. It would cover, presumably, illnesses of the patentee.

H. R. 124 is very similar to H. R. 1107. It differs somewhat in its language and in some of its provisions, but 1107 appears to be the one that has been given much more attention. This bill is a duplicate, with one exception, of H. R. 6346 of the Seventy-ninth Congress as it was passed by the House of Representatives.

Mr. LEWIS. Just a moment, Mr. Federico.

There is nothing important on the floor, so they say. Shall we continue with the hearing or shall we try to come back this afternoon? Mr. KEATING. I have a 2 o'clock appointment.

Mr. LEWIS. Shall we continue?

Mr. BRYSON. I can stay a while longer.

Mr. LEWIS. All right, Mr. Federico. Proceed.

Mr. FEDERICO. H. R. 1107 is a duplicate, with one exception, that I will refer to, of H. R. 6346, as it passed the House of Representatives. It includes the amendments which were made in the House in passing the bill, except on the one difference, that I will mention. The bill also is very similar to the law that was enacted in 1928. In fact, it is patterned after that law, and differs only in a few respects from it, although I have not compared it word by word.

The general position of the Patent Office in opposition to extensions of patents applies to bills of this kind, and the Patent Office has in the past opposed legislation to extend patents to compensate for the war period, including bills on behalf of persons that served in the military services.

The act of 1928, as has been stated, was applied in six instances. There were nine petitions under that act, and six were granted; but that was probably an unfair comparison and is not a very accurate statement, because the act of 1928 was passed 10 years after the end of the war and it did not apply to patents that had expired in the meantime, and after 10 years probably enough people lost interest and did not apply for the extension that would have applied had the bill been passed immediately.

The act does illustrate that a bill of this kind, if the principle is adopted, should be passed as soon as possible rather than 10 years after the event.

I want to comment on a few details of the language of the bill. The first section provides that any person that served between certain dates and was subsequently honorably discharged may within 6 months after enactment, or 6 months after such honorable discharge, apply for the extension. That fixes the time limit which would take care of any notice, except on one point. The application may be made 6 months after the discharge, if still in the service at the time of the enactment. However, in the case of persons who might be in the service for a long time, there would be no closing date, so there might be a closing date added at that point-probably a certain period after the enactment greater than 6 months mentioned in the other.

cases.

Mr. CHADWICK. Is not that in the provision that subsequent reenlistments shall not extend the period?

Mr. FEDERICO. Pardon me?

Mr. CHADWICK. Is not there a provision in this act that subsequent reenlistments shall not extend the time?

Mr. FEDERICO. Subsequent reenlistments do not extend the period of the extension, according to a later section of the bill but I am not certain that that would take care of the matter here.

On page 2, line 1, there is a payment of a fee of $30 for the extension. There is now before the committee a bill for raising all the fees of the Patent Office in order to make the Patent Office self-sustaining, which was presented at the request of the Appropriations Committee for

that purpose. This $30 listed here might be looked into to be brought into conformity with that bill, if considered necessary.

Mr. LEWIS. Do you favor that bill?

Mr. FEDERICO. If the Patent Office is to be made self-supporting in the sense that it must collect more money than it uses, then that bill is the only answer.

Mr. KEATING. Should it be made self-supporting?

Mr. FEDERICO. I cannot answer that question except personally. Mr. BRYSON. It is not a revenue-raising agency, is it?

Mr. FEDERICO. In the past, it has raised revenue, up to the last dozen or so years; but the direct object of the Patent Office is not to produce revenue for the Government.

Mr. BRYSON. But to increase these filing fees would work extreme hardship on us little folks, would it not?

Mr. FEDERICO. That general question of fees is one that the Commissioner mentioned when I was talking on the phone with him yesterday. He stated that he wants to present the case to the committee when the bill comes up; I could only tell you what I think personally.

Mr. KEATING. Judging from my mail, there are others that want to present such a case.

Mr. BRYSON. Yes.

Mr. FEDERICO. The position probably will be that if Congress wants the Patent Office self-supporting, this is the only way to do it, or this is a way to do it.

Mr. BRYSON. Mr. Taber has not gotten in there with his knife to see if he could reduce some of the expenses of the Patent Office yet, has he? Mr. FEDERICO. He is working on it.

On page 2, lines 8 and 9 of this bill, there is a phrase, "the original term of which remained unexpired at the time of the conclusion of World War II, September 2, 1945."

Now, inasmuch as a specific date is stated, there is no need for the phrase "at the time of the conclusion of World War II.”

Mr. KEATING. That is the first time anybody ever said the war was over, on the 2d day of September 1945.

Mr. FEDERICO. A phrase like that in a bill might have an adverse effect on many existing statutes that depend for their termination on the determination by Congress of the termination of the war, and this might be looked upon as a determination by Congress of the termination of the war.

Mr. LEWIS. That would be very confusing.

Mr. FEDERICO. In paragraph "E" of this first section, at the top of page 3, it provides that the applicant for the extension must obtain the consent of licensees to the extension. If he has granted a number of licenses, each one must consent.

Now, if the patent is licensed, it is very doubtful if the consent could be obtained in all cases from the licensees, because they would in some cases be adversely affected; that is, without the extension, they would stop paying royalties at an early date, and with the extension, they would have to continue paying royalties for a longer period, and some licensees might refuse to consent or charge the patent owner something for consent.

In line 10 of page 3, occurs the phrase, "for a further term equaling twice or three times the length of said service in the military or naval

forces." This is the only point on which this bill differs from the one that was passed by the House last year. The bill last year provided for a further term equaling the length of the military service.

Incidentally, stating "twice or three times" makes the language indefinite and ambiguous.

In lines 18 and 19, in the paragraph where it states that the licensee of a patent is automatically granted an extension of the license, appears the phrase "thereby creating an equitable adjustment of the benefits of this act." This is a declaration which seems a little out of place, and as I mentioned in connection with subsection E, some licensees would not consider that an equitable adjustment of the benefits of the act.

Paragraph "H," I take it, is designed to protect the rights of those who may have acted before the extension is granted.

First, the other patentees mentioned presumably would be only patentees of improvement patents, who were waiting on the expiration of the first patent before going into their business.

Then, second, the right of anyone who was lawfully manufacturing before the passage of the act is protected. If the patent has not expired at the time of the passage of the act, the only persons that could be lawfully manufacturing would be the licensees.

The

In connection with section 3, the Commissioner is given the power to grant the extension, or to refuse the extension, applied for. question arises in my mind whether the Commissioner would have the power to cut down the term applied for, to grant it for a different period from what was applied for. It seems to admit only of an all or none decision.

On page 6, in lines 10 and 11, there is the phrase "may plead the general issue, and having given notice in writing to the manufacturer or his attorney 30 days before, may prove on trial."

That language precedes the new rules of civil procedure and probably ought to be changed by canceling "the general issue" and so on up to "may" in line 12, and substituting "and" so it would read, "the defendant may plead and prove on trial," and so forth.

Of course, it is not possible, to estimate the cost of administering this bill, since that would depend on the volume of applications received. If only a handful of applications were received the cost would be probably negligible. If hundreds and thousands were received there would have to be a special staff set up to handle the work, and the staff would have to include pretty competent men to decide the questions that would be raised by these various provisions. Mr. BRYSON. I believe the preceding witness testified that there were only six extensions as a result of the World War I Act?

Mr. FEDERICO. Yes; there were only six granted. I mention that that statement is a little unfair, because the act of 1928 was enacted 10 years after the end of the war and did not apply to all the patents that had expired during those 10 years, so we cannot say what number would have been applied for if the act had been passed immediately after the termination of the war.

That finishes the statement that I have.

Mr. CHADWICK. Mr. Frederico, will you be so good as to refer back to page 2, paragraph B?

If you commented on that, it escaped me.

Mr. FEDERICO. No; I did not comment on that.

Mr. CHADWICK. I ask you to advert to it because it seems to me that in that paragraph there might be a fruitful source of additional and unnecessary complications and difficulties. If I read it rightly, it is intended to say that if a veteran has any right, direct or indirect, in a patent, that right is to be protected.

Mr. FEDERICO. Yes.

Mr. CHADWICK. Yes, under the terms of this bill.

Mr. FEDERICO. If he is the owner of the patent, then he would be able to obtain the extension as provided by this bill. He may

not

Mr. CHADWICK. I think we would all agree to that.

Mr. FEDERICO. Then if he owns rights in the invention or under the patent, or income by way of royalty or otherwise therefrom, whereby an extension of the term of said patent would benefit him. Mr. BRYSON. If he only owned a portion of a patent or interest in it?

Mr. FEDERICO. Such that he would get income from it?
Mr. BRYSON. Yes.

Mr. FEDERICO. Then that patent would come under these provisions. Mr. BRYSON. If he only owned a tenth interest in it and received royalties from that tenth interest, he could have the patent extended by reason of that tenth interest?

Mr. FEDERICO. Yes, that would come under this provision.

Mr. CHADWICK. Do you not think it is far better to limit the benefits of this, if it is recommended at all, to inventors and absolute owners of patents who shall be veterans, rather than to open the door to all the uncertainty that might grow out of a lesser right to the patent?

Mr. FEDERICO. You would eliminate the incidental interest and other questions that might arise, if it were limited to patentees, the inventor and owner of the patent.

Of course, back in paragraph A, he may have been the inventor and obtained the patent and may have sold it and may no longer have any interest whatsoever; according to the language of paragraph A, that patent may be extended, even though the veteran himself might not have any rights.

Mr. CHADWICK. Yes.

I notice that clause B contains a saving line that is not in the preceding paragraph. It looks to the fact that he must be the inventor and at the time of the passage of the act, the owner or licensee.

Mr. FEDERICO. If that saving clause were attached to paragraph A it would eliminate the possibility of an extension where the inventor had parted with all interest and had no further rights, it would eliminate that patent from being extendable under this bill; of course paragraphs C and D provide limitations.

Mr. KEATING. Also, have not we got to make some provision that if we should report favorably a bill like this, to fix a time limit when the veteran was the owner, in order to avoid veterans going out and buying up a lot of patents and relying on the law being passed? Is that covered in here?