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The Professional Approach
The trials of a patent lawyer are usually highly technical tribulations--and among the greatest is the fact that Inventors are only slightly less predictable than their Inventions!
by Leonard Lockhard
Illustrated by Schoenherr
"Sometimes," said Helix Spardleton, Esquire, "a patent case gets awayfrom you. As the attorney in the case, you never quite see it the sameas everybody else. You stand isolated and alone, unable to persuade thePatent Examiners, the Board, the courts, possibly even the inventor, toaccept your view of the case. Nothing you do or say matches anyoneelse's thinking, and you begin to wonder what's the matter witheveryone."
I nodded. This was my favorite time of day. It was early evening inWashington, D.C., and my boss, Helix Spardleton, patent attorneyextraordinary, was relaxing. His feet were up on one corner of hisdesk, his cigar was in the Contemplation Position, and the smoke curledslowly toward the ceiling. His office was a good room in which to relax.It was filled with fine, old well-scratched furniture, and the wallswere lined with books, and there was the comfortable picture of JusticeHolmes on the wall looking down with rare approval on what he saw.Susan, our secretary, had made the last coffee of the day, and hadkicked off her shoes the better to enjoy it. The three of us just sat inthe deepening dusk, and talked. We didn't even turn on a light. It was ashame I wasn't paying close attention to Mr. Spardleton.
I said, "Yes, I know what you mean about other people's not seeingthings the same way you do. I've seen something like it at work withsome of my friends just before they get married. They think their bridesare just about the most beautiful women in the world, when they arereally quite homely--wouldn't even hold a candle to our Susan here."
Mr. Spardleton looked at me and then at Susan, and Susan looked at himand then at me in that sober wide-eyed way she has, and then they lookedat each other and smiled. I guess they realized that I had saidsomething pretty funny.
Mr. Spardleton said, "I understand why you think of the situation interms of brides, but I always think of it in terms of a proud father whosees nothing but perfection in his newborn son."
"Yes," I said, "that's a good way to put it, too."
"There are," he continued through a cloud of gentle smoke, "twodifferent ways in which a patent case can get away from the attorney.The first doesn't happen very often, but when it does it has a tendencyto set the world on fire. That's the case that has true merit toit--high invention, if you will--but the invention is so subtle thatnobody can see its importance. Only the attorney who wraps the casearound his heart can appreciate its vast potential. He goes through theprosecution before the Patent Office and possibly before the courtsshouting high praises of the invention, but all the tribunals turn adeaf ear. Sometimes the attorney finally reaches Nirvana; the inventioncomes into its own. It shakes the world, just as the attorney had alwaysknown it would."
I nodded and said, "Elias Howe and his sewing machine, McCormick and hisreaper, Colt and his pistol." Mr. Spardleton had taught me well.
"The other way is more common," he continued. "There the attorney neversees the case in its true light. He is blinded by something in it andthinks it is greater than it is. He wastes a lot of time trying topersuade everybody that this very ordinary invention is the wonder ofthe decade. He thinks of the invention the way a father does of awayward son--he sees none of its faults, only its virtues, and hemagnifies those."
I shifted into a more comfortable position in my deep chair. Mr.Spardleton must have thought I was going to say something. He looked atme and added hastily, "Or rather, as you'd have it, the way a bridegroomlooks at his prospective bride. That better?"
"Oh yes. Those fellows are really blinded. They just can't see anythingthe way it really is."
Mr. Spardleton said, "Most patent attorneys are unable to tell thedifference between the two ways a case can get away from them, once theyget caught in it. They always think that nobody else agrees with thembecause nobody else understands the case. It is quite a blow when itturns out that they are the one who has been wrong all along. Yes,sometimes an understanding of the facts is as difficult as anunderstanding of the law."
"Yes," I said sleepily. "Sure must be."
If I had known better that evening, I would never have allowed myself toget so sleepy. I should have listened for the meaning in Mr.Spardleton's words instead of merely listening to the words themselves.I have seen Patent Examiners act that way--they hear the words, but themeaning does not come through. We locked the doors and went home, then.How I wish I had listened!
* * * * *
Dr. Nathaniel Marchare is unquestionably the greatest organic chemistthe world has seen since Emil Fischer. His laboratories in Alexandria,Virginia, constantly pour out a host of exceedingly importantinventions. The chemists, physicists, physical chemists, and biologistswho work under him are all dedicated men and women, gifted with thatscientific insight that so often produces simple solutions to greatproblems. Dr. Marchare and his people are the principal clients of thefirm of Helix Spardleton, Patent Attorney, and as such they are veryimportant to me. Nevertheless, I always get a queasy feeling in mystomach when Dr. Marchare excitedly calls up Mr. Spardleton, and Mr.Spardleton turns him over to me.
Dr. Marchare is a very nice person, not at all mad as people are proneto say. He is tall and gaunt and slightly wall-eyed, and he seems tolive in a great, flopping laboratory smock, and his hair is always wild,and he seems to look around you rather than at you, but he is a verynice person and not at all mad. His main trouble is he does notunderstand the workings of the United States Patent System. After I haveexplained to him the operation of the Patent Law on some particularsituation, Dr. Marchare frequently begins to mutter to himself as if Iwere no longer in the same room with him, and I find this mostdiscouraging. As if this were not bad enough, many of Dr. Marchare'sscientists have acquired the same habit.
It was a bright fall morning when this particular call came through. Ihadn't heard the phone ring, nor did I hear Mr. Spardleton answer it inresponse to Susan's buzz. But some sixth sense brought me upright in mychair when I heard Mr. Spardleton say, "Well, how are things out in theWashington suburbs this morning?"
I felt the hairs tingle at the base of my neck, and I knew that Mr.Spardleton was talking to Dr. Marchare. I heard, "Certainly, why don't Isend Mr. Saddle out. He's worked with Callahan before--on that PigeonScarer Case, as I recall--and the two of them can decide what to do.That sound all right?"
I am afraid it sounded all right, because there was some chitchat andthen the sound of the phone's banging into its cradle, and Mr.Spardleton's booming voice, "Oh, Mr. Saddle. Will you come in here amoment, please?"
I took a quick swallow of milk of magnesia, an excellent antacid, andwent in. Mr. Spardleton was busy so he came right to the point. "They'vegot some kind of problem out at the Marchare Laboratory--don't knowwhether to file a patent application right now, or wait until theinvention is more fully developed. Will you hop out there and get themstraightened out? Callahan is the chemist, and you know him prettywell."
I certainly did. Callahan's name always reminded me of the time I tooktestimony in Sing Sing Prison on a Callahan application in Interference.But I nodded numbly and went back to my office and finished the bottleof milk of magnesia and caught a cab to the Marchare Laboratory.
* * *
It was cool in the lab and the air smelled faintly of solvents. I likedthe smell, and I sniffed it deeply and tried to distinguish one from theother. My chemistry professor had often told me that I had
the best nosehe had run across in twenty-five years of teaching. I picked out thepungent, aromatic odor of toluene and the hospital smell of diethylether, and I thought I could detect the heavy odor of lauryl alcohol.Underneath them all was a rich, sweet smell that I had smelled before,but I couldn't tell what it was. I decided it was a lactone, and let itgo at that. I nodded as I went past the receptionist, and her smile mademe feel uncomfortable again, just as it always did; there was too muchof a leer in it. I never stopped to tell her where I was going; I justwent in unannounced.
I went up the stairs and down the hall to Callahan's lab, next to Dr.Marchare's. I went in. Henry Callahan stood at a bench pouring acolorless liquid down a chromatographic column. He looked over at me andsaid, "Well, Carl Saddle. How