Memorandum for the Secretary. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, The accompanying letter from Hon. Lynn J. Frazier, chairman Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate, transmitted for a report a copy of S. J. Res. 167, to clarify and amend an act entitled "An act conferring jurisdiction upon the Court of Claims to hear, examine, adjudicate, and enter judgment in any claim which the Assiniboine Indians may have against the United States, and for other purposes," approved March 2, 1927. The Assiniboine Indians have filed a petition under the act of March 2, 1927 (44 Stat. L. 1263). This act authorized the adjudication of claims arising under the treaty of Fort Laramie of September 17, 1851 (11 Stat. L. 749) (2 Kappler, 594), and that of October 17, 1855 (11 Stat. L. 657). The treaty of Fort Laramie awarded certain lands south of the Missouri River to the Assiniboine Tribe. This treaty described the reservations of the various Indian nations parties thereto south of the Missouri River, but made no provision for the land lying north thereof. The last paragraph of article 5 of the Fort Laramie treaty reads as follows: "It is, however, understood that, in making this recognition and acknowledgment, the aforesaid Indian nations do not hereby abandon or prejudice any rights or claims they may have to other lands; and further, that they do not surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over any of the tracts of country heretofore described." Part of the Assiniboine lands were involved in the treaty of 1855 with the Blackfeet Nation. The act of April 15, 1874 (18 Stat. L., 28), set apart another area of the lands claimed by the Assiniboine Indians as a reservation for the Blackfeet, Blood, Piegan, Gros Ventres, and River Crows. Another part of the lands claimed by the Assiniboines are involved in the agreement ratified by the act of May 1, 1888 (25 Stat. L., 113). The Assiniboine Indians were parties to the agreement of 1888, but the other tribes received much of the consideration for the cession. The purpose of this resolution is to clarify and make definite the right of the Assiniboine Indians to claim the lands above-mentioned north of the river. The act of March 2, 1927, expressly mentioned claims arising under or growing out of the treaty of Fort Laramie of September 17, 1851, and the treaty of October 17, 1855. While the act did not mention specifically the acts of 1874 and 1888, it did provide that the Court of Claims should have jurisdiction to adjudicate claims arising under any subsequent act of Congress, treaty, agreement, or Executive order, or treaty with any other Indian tribe or nation that violates any of the treaty rights of the Assiniboine Indian Nation. The act of 1927 being somewhat indefinite, it appears that legislation is desired to clarify the terms thereof. In view of the above it is recommended that S. J. Res. 167 be enacted into law. C. S. RHOADS, Commissioner. O Mr. COPELAND, from the Committee on Commerce, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany S. 1812] The Committee on Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1812) to authorize the collection of annual statistics relating to certain public institutions, have considered the same and report thereon with amendments, and as so amended recommend that the bill do pass. The bill thus amended has the approval of the Department of Commerce, as will appear by the annexed communications which are made a part of this report, the amendments referred to therein having been incorporated in the bill as reported. Hon. W. L. JONES, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, Chairman Committee on Commerce, United States Senate. MY DEAR SENATOR: I have your letter of the 21st ultimo, requesting a report from this department on S. 1812, entitled "To authorize the collection of annual statistics relating to certain public institutions." For the information of your committee I am inclosing herewith a memorandum dated November 26, 1929, from the Director of the Bureau of the Census regarding this bill; also a letter from the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, dated December 6. 1929. Very truly yours, E. F. MORGAN, Acting Secretary of Commerce. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, Memorandum for the Secretary regarding a bill authorizing the collection annually of statistics concerning public institutions (S. 1812). The act approved March 6, 1902, authorized the collection decennially of statistics relating "to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes; to crime, including judicial statistics pertaining thereto.' Following the decennial census of these classes, which under that act was taken in the year 1923, the Secretary authorized the Director of the Census to collect annually statistics concerning inmates of penal institutions and of institutions for the care of the mentally diseased and of feeble-minded and epileptics. Under this authorization, statistics have been collected for 1926, 1927, and 1928. This bill (S. 1812) is intended to place this work on a permanent basis. Such legislation is deemed necessary because the authorization granted by the Secretary was more or less provisional and limited in scope. be broad enough to cover the annual collection of the statistics which, under the The bill, it is believed, should act of 1902, were to be collected only once in 10 years. It is therefore recom mended that it be changed as follows: Omit the words "inmates of institutions for" on line 5 and insert in place thereof the words "crime and the" and that the title of the bill be changed by striking out the words "certain public institutions" and inserting in place thereof the words to "crime and to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes," so that the bill will read as follows: "A BILL To authorize the collection of annual statistics relating to crime and to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Director of the Census be, and hereby is, authorized to compile and publish annually statistics relating to crime and to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes." W. M. STEUART, Director. BUREAU OF THE BUDGET, MY DEAR MR. SECRETARY: I have the department's letter of the 29th ultimo concerning S. 1812, a bill to authorize the collection of annual statistics relating to certain institutions. You are advised that the expenditure contemplated by this proposed legislation would not be in conflict with the financial program of the President. The inclosures accompanying your letter of the 29th ultimo are returned herewith. Sincerely yours, The SECRETARY OF COMMERCE. J. CLAWSON ROOP, Director. O 71ST CONGRESS 2nd Session SENATE FORFEITURE OF PATENT RIGHTS MAY 29, 1930.-Ordered to be printed REPORT No. 757 Mr. DILL, from the Committee on Patents, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany S. 4442] Your committee, to which was referred S. 4442, held full hearings on the bill and considered it carefully and desires to report it favorably without amendment. This bill is identical with S. 2783 of the Seventieth Congress, second session, reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Patents, with the exception that section 3 of this bill is new. This section provides that when any of the defenses set forth in sections 1 and 2 are pleaded by a defendant in a patent infringement suit, the issues thus raised shall be tried separately from and previous to the hearing of other issues raised by other defenses. Your committee believes this is a valuable addition to the former bill, since it makes clear the procedure in cases of this kind. This bill does not provide for forfeiture of patent rights because of violation of laws against restraint of trade and antitrust laws, but simply suspends the right of a patentee to enforce actions for infringement so long as the violation of the laws referred to continues. This suspension would continue just as long as the owner continued to violate the antitrust laws. This bill places the burden of proof upon the person charged with the infringement of the patent. This means that if the combination is found to be guilty of violating the law by the use or control of its patents or the patents of others in a line of business closely connected, its patent is suspended until it has so reorganized its business that it is no longer guilty of that offense. That is to say, the bill simply compels the patentee who sues for infringement to come into court with clean hands and thus is a natural and proper use of the police powers of the Government. This statute is intended to protect not only independent competitors of patent combinations that are illegal, but also those who are independer t inventors in the arts. At the present time independent inventors often find it almost impossible to secure a market for their inventions. They must either sell their patents to an existing monopoly on whatever terms it decides to fix, or they must find capital that will not be intimidated by the fear of having to fight a firmly entrenched monopoly, and to carry on defensive litigation to prevent that monopoly from destroying the new invention. The very fact that the Government has issued a patent to an inventor, an exclusive privilege, a monopoly, granting him the right, for 17 years, to exclude anyone else from manufacturing, using, or selling his invention should put upon such a patentee the burden of a scrupulous observance of the laws of the United States. It is particularly iniquitous if the holder of such a privilege should use it to violate the antitrust statutes or any other laws. When the patent laws were written, inventors exploited their own discoveries, usually alone. Now inventions are developed almost exclusively by corporations and we find that bankers and lawyers, instead of inventors, are the real beneficiaries of the patent laws. One of the results of this revolution in our industrial system has been a multiplicity of patents often covering trival inventions-all with the purpose of blanketing an art and of making competition difficult, if not impossible. Worse than this has been the effort to combine groups of patents, both important and trivial, to a point at which the very multiplicity of patents has made competition impossible. The very threat of patent-infringement suits has often been sufficient to prevent the entry of new capital in industry or even to keep out inventions which might contribute greatly to the progress of an art. This bill is aimed to prevent such an abuse of the patent system. It has been charged that legislation of this character threatens to break down the patent system upon which our industrial progress has been largely founded. This is not true. The destruction of the benefits of that patent system will be inevitable if those who abuse it to create illegal monopolies are permitted to continue to protect their infractions of the law under pretense of patent rights. The Clayton law was written largely because the Supreme Court held that the prohibitions of the Sherman Act did not prohibit contracts containing tying or restrictive clauses based on manufacture, sale, or use of patented articles. It was to cure that defect that Congress wrote the Clayton Act and forbade such agreements, whether based on patented or unpatented devices. Just as the Sherman law was at that time not sufficient to protect the freedom of competition from combinations in American business and industry, we now find that the Clayton law seems not to be broad enough to cover the newest forms of patent abuses. |