The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This folder contains correspondence and other documents relating to foreign and domestic patent applications, assignments, litigation, legislation, and other patent matters. Among the items for 1919 are several drafts in Edison's hand outlining his ideas regarding government ownership of patents and the provision of royalties to "salaried inventors." Also included in these drafts, as well as in related correspondence with Allen A. Dicke of Remington Arms Co. and Maj. A. M. Holcombe of the Munitions Patents Board, are Edison's ideas regarding policy toward employees who apply for patents in connection with their work. In addition, there is a circular from the Patent Office Society pertaining to congressional legislation affecting the U.S. Patent Office, as well as letters sent by Edison to the members of the New Jersey congressional delegation in response to the concerns raised in the circular. The letters to New Jersey Sen. Joseph S. Frelinghuysen and to Nebraska Sen. George W. Norris, chair of Senate Committee on Patents, have been selected.

Approximately 50 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected items include Edison's letters to the twelve New Jersey members of the House of Representatives and to New Jersey Sen. Walter E. Edge, all of which received only routine acknowledgments; copies of booklets on the U.S. Patent Office and the patent system; and routine informational inquiries answered by Edison's secretarial staff.