The Integrity Of The Patent Examining Corps Was Subject To Attack

by Steve Reiss (stevenreiss@scienbizippc.com)


I love the scholastic tidbits that the old journals contain...

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The Journal of the Patent Office Society (now the Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society) is a patent and trademark law journal published by the Patent Office Society, which was founded in 1917 by patent office professionals. In its earliest issues, most of the articles were written by examiners or examiners-in-chief, explaining patent law or procedures.


During this early time, the Office suffered attrition on grounds that it faced before and will continue to face in the future. This problem is the wide discrepancy in pay between private sector patent attorneys/agents and government/public sector patent attorneys/examiners.

Every month, the Journal had a listing of recently resigned examiners that leaving for higher paying jobs in the private sector. The Journal cited these listings to support its opinion that morale at the office was low, examiner pay needed to be raised, and the office needed to be an independent agency so that the Secretary of the Interior (the Office was not yet under the Secretary of Commerce) could not meddle with Patent Office or patent law issues, which the SoI had no real experience. In other words, the Journal was merely publicizing the challenges the Patent Office was facing then- and would continue facing, pretty much forever.

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During this time, the Office also suffered attrition from the extraordinary number of resignations due to World War I and the sad fact that many of those examiner's that left to fight the war, died during their war service.

And then, in May, 1920, a strange resignation was noted and had a very strange tone. The Journal reported:

TEXT: Miss Grace MacFarland resigned April 21st and the announcement of her marriage appeared shortly thereafter. It thus appears that the integrity of the corps is subject to attack in a new direction which it will be extremely difficult to guard against. Miss MacFarland, or to be more accurate, the former Miss MacFarland, entered the Office as a temporary Fourth Assistant Examiner August 27, 1918; was made permanent assistant Dec. 1, 1919, and promoted to Third Assistant Examiner Feb. 23, 1920. She served continuously and very acceptably in Div. 43.

2 JOURNAL OF THE PATENT OFFICE SOCIETY 482 (May 1920)(emphasis added).

What the editors of the Journal meant by "the integrity of the corps is subject to attack" by the announcement of Examiner MacFarland's marriage is only subject to guessing. To me, at least, the phrase "Miss MacFarland, or to be more accurate, the former Miss MacFarland" seems snarky and intended, in combination with statement that the corps being "subject to attack," to be a jab at women examiners, who in the editor's view, were likely to resign the positions and become stay at home moms after marriage, taking their patent experience home with them. This is the 1902's after-all.

My guess as to what the editors of the Journal meant is not based on me having any particular bias in favor of diversity political correctness, nor an over-sensitivity to so-called "social justice" issues.

But, when you are reading what is supposedly an objective and respected legal journal, and read a statement like this, in the journal section entitled "OF GENERAL AND PERSONAL INTEREST", the snarky tone just hits me in the head and make me go "hmm."

Finally, having read dozens of these resignation statements from 1919-1920, they typically tend to either not editorialize on the resigning examiner's performance while at the office or take a highly positively tone. For example, in the very same the issue discussing Grace's marriage and virtually just below her announcement, the Journal says:

 Mr. B. J. Craig, 2nd assistant examiner, has resigned to go with Bates & Macklin, patent attorneys... He served in Divs. 40 and 44, always doing exceptionally good work.

Mr. Elmer J. Gray, a temporary 4th Assistant Examiner, has resigned to enter the office of Mr. C. A. Weed, patent attorney, of New York City. While Mr. Gray has been m the corps only since Sept. 29, 1919, he has developed marked aptitude for the work and his departure is a real loss to the Office.

Therefore, the Journal's "compliment" to Miss MacFarland that she performed "very acceptably" at the office is not consistent with the editor's typical tone.

During this era, there was only one other time that the Journal pointed out a marriage in the corps. In the June, 1920 issue, the editors said:

Here, the editors are clearly trying to make a patent joke, with the listing's reference to good combinations and not aggregations. See MPEP 2173.05(k) ("Aggregation").

What do you think? Am I just reading too much into this?
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