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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897. Excerpt:... PATENTED TELEPHONY. In investigating this subject it is well to consider the value of an invention that has passed the ordeal of the Examiner and been regularly issued as a United States patent, but has not been passed upon by any higher tribunal. The greater part of the patents mentioned in this volume were issued prior to 1892, and it is not supposable that since that time there has been so radical a change of procedure as materially to alter the conditions antedating that year. A good deal of light is thrown on this subject by the report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1893, and from that report is made the following extract: A study of eighty-one patent cases, recently before the courts, wherein the claims were held to be Invalid, discloses that in twenty-six there was no evidence that the references before the court, in view of which the patents were found to be Invalid, were ever cited by this office; Id twenty-nine some, but not all, of the references were cited, and only In the remaining twenty-six were the same references before the office as were before the court. Of 988 court cases reported In the Official Gazette between 1880 and 1892, wherein patents were In litigation, 436 patents were sustained and 552 were declared invalid in whole or in part. Of the number declared Invalid, 428 were by reason of some fault In the Office, and 124 on account of evidence brought to light of which the Office had no knowledge before granting the patents. These figures do not furnish the basis for a general estimate of the proportion of patents granted, which, if contested, would be declared void, for all those In which there Is a general acquiescence in their validity and which consequently never are contested In courts, must be reckoned upon the s...