INVENTORS HARD AT IT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5328, 19 September 1928, Page 1

INVENTORS HARD AT IT.

12 PATENTS EVERY DAY. TOTAL FOR YEAR 3522. About a dozen applications for patent every working day were received by t'hc; Patent iOffi.cc thr.ougho,ut last year, the total for the twelve months being. 3522, according to the annlual report of the Registrar of Patents and Trademarkes (Mr. H. T. Atkinson). This figure was a slight increase ait that of the previous yw> and is interpreted as an easing off of the period of commercial depression which always sends down the number of applications for patents and 1 trademarks. Comparison of the Naw Zealand pate.njl figures with those of Australia is interesting. The Commonwealth, with about six million people, has about 5300 applications for patents each year, whereas New Zealand, with about a quarter of that population, has ove,r 2000 applications for patents Apparently omr people are a gepd' deal more inventive than the Unfortunately the Patent Office figures do not reveal liqw many people make 'money out of their iiitvcntiou and how many lose it. This is a motoring age, and inventions touching vehicles headed the, list last year, though the n/umber patented, 180, was 40 -short of the pieceding year. Electrical devicse of various kinds came second, with 153 applications;, an increase- of 30» over the previous year. The' telegraphic and telephonic patents, including those for. ra.dio, as third on the. list, totalling 142, a .decline, however, of 34 on the preceding year. Milling machine improvements have long exercised the ingenuity of New Zealand farmers, but last year, the patents dropped by a .third, to, 42. Flax-dressing had) 36 patents, as against 24 the year before, and kauri gum 16, as against 6. Amusement devices stand at about normal, with 31 patents- for roadmaking machinery, devices, as aga.inst 18 in the previous year. Sixty per cent of the patents are the wo,rk of New Zealand inventors, whose application; l .: total 1204. Great Britain comes second with 332,- and Australia .third, with 295. The States come ifext, with 183, and then there is a substantial drop, Germany with 39 applications, being next. TrAde mark applications totalled 1352, an increase of 182 over, the previous year. New Zealand aplications for trade mark registrations numbered 460, other figures being Great Britain 284, .the States 189, Australia 123. There were 202 applications from Germany, a,s against 24 1 the previous year, this large, increase being due to, a group o-f over. 170 applicat.ion'jS from a large German chemical manufacturing concern.