Reciprocity in Respect to Patents and Patent
Rights.
A Scheme for the Consideration of the
International American Congress.
By F. A. Seely.
In formulating terms for reciprocity between the American nations, with respect to patents for inventions, it is observed, first of all, that no scheme can be framed which will be more liberal towards foreigners than the existing law of the United States. That law places them in all respects on the same footing as our own citizens, both in regard to the conditions on which letters patent are granted and those under which patent rights are subsequently upheld by the courts. This liberality towards foreigners is, indeed, characteristic of the laws of the American nations generally. They grant their patents to citizens and aliens alike, and upon the same terms. This is done by statute, and hence there is little need of treaty stipulations to establish reciprocity in this particular.
But the conditions under which the validity of a patent in some American countries may be vitiated after the grant bear somewhat hard on the foreigner if, as is natural, he happen to have first secured a patent in his own country. In no case is the patent granted without the presumption of novelty and that the applicant is the true inventor but in none of the American countries are the same pains taken as in the United States to determine positively that the invention for which the patent is asked is the invention of the applicant, and that the patent shall be granted only for that which, by rigid examination into the art to which the invention appertains, has been determined to be actually novel. In the United States the grant is conditioned on these, an oath being required of the applicant that he verily believes himself to be the original and first inventor of that which he seeks to protect by patent, and his
