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A pervisal of the Annvial Report of the Commissioner of Patents shows that the affairs of the Patent Office are in a thoroughly satisfactory condition, and that its bvisiness is steadily increasing, the total nvimber of patents and reissvies being the greatest in the history of this institution. In the year 1900 there were received 39,673 applications for patents, 2,225 applications for designs, 82 applications for reissvies, 2,-09y- for registration1 of trade-marks, 943 for labels and 127 for prints. Including designs, there were 26,418 patents granted, 81 patents were reissvied, 1,721 trade-maf tee registered, besides 727 labels and 93 prints. The total expenditure for the year was $1,260,019.62; the Mfceipts exceeded the expenditvire by $90,808.91. The total balance to the credit of the Patent Office in the Treasviry on the first day of tSis year was $5,177,-458.55. The nvimber of patents issued in proportion to the nvimber of citizens was greatest in the case of the District of Columbia, in which one patent was is-sued to every 1,110 inhabitants. Then followed Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York, the ratio in the last-named State being 1 to every 1,9-18. The State to which the least number of patents was granted in proportion to its inhabitants is South Carolina, in which oiMy one Wit or every 28,-517 inhabitants received a patent. With regard to foreign patentees the greatest numoer or pavents was granted to Great Britain, which received 1,088; then came Germany witn 1.070. Canada 367, Prance 341 Austria-Hungary 117 and Switzerland 79, the total uuniber of foreign patents granted being 3,483. The first patent to be granted by the United States Patent Office under the present series number of letters bore date July 28, 1836, and in that year a total of 109 patents was issued. In 1840 the number of patents and reissues was 473; in 1850, 993; in 1860, 4,819; in 1870, 13,321; in 1SS0. 13,947; and in 1890, 26,292. There was a decline in the number of issues during the decade until it fell to 20,867 in 1894. Prom that time on there was an increase in the total nvimber until it reached the figure, in 1900, of 26,499. The largest surplus of any year was in 1883, when it amounted to $471,005. The small-, est surplus since 1861 occvirred in 1898, when it amounted to only $1,538. In 1899 it was $113,673, and in 1900 it was $90,808. It is interesting to know that the total nvimber of patents issvied by foreign countries vip to the close of the nineteenth centviry was 1,328,309, while the total nvimber of patents issvied dviring the same period by the United States was 674,944, making a grand total of 2,003,253 patents issued in the whole worM. We are glad to learn from the report before us that the examining work of the office has been kept well in hand in the year 1900. On December 31, 1900, 4,982 applications were awaiting action, as compared with 5,392 on December 26 of the previous year. Again on December 26, 1899, thirty-three divisions were examining applications filed within one month, and three divisions those filed within two months; while on December 31, 1900, thirty-five divisions were examining applications filed within one month and one division those filed within five weeks. At both dates substantially all of the divisions were taking up amended cases for action within fifteen days after the amendments were filed. Although during the past six months some of the space in the Patent Office building vacated by the General Land Office has come into the possession of the clerical staff, sufficient room for the necessary work of the office is not yet available. We heartily agr.ee with the statement of the Commissioner that the only solution of the problem lies in the construction of a fireproof building, the whole of it to be used for the accommodation of the Patent Office. The latter half of the report contains an exhaustive and valuable account of the American Patent Office as such. It reviews the historical and economical phases of the extraordinary growth of the American system. This portion of the report, which is too long to be reproduced in these columns, will be found in full in the current issue of the SUPPLEMENT.
