Thomas E. Robertson

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Thomas E. Robertson
Robertson in 1921
United States Commissioner of Patents
In office April 6, 1921 – June 25, 1933
President	Warren G. Harding Calvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Melvin H. Coulston
Succeeded by	Conway P. Coe
Personal details
Born	(1871-05-07)May 7, 1871 Washington, D.C., U.S.
Died	December 1957 (aged 86)
Education	George Washington University National University School of Law

Thomas E. Robertson (May 7, 1871 – December 1957) was an American lawyer and government official who served as United States Commissioner of Patents from April 6, 1921, to June 25, 1933. His service was the longest term as commissioner in the history of the Patent Office, although William Thornton remained the longest-serving head of the office overall. Robertson's tenure was marked by efforts to reduce patent-application arrears, stabilize the examiner corps, expand Patent Office administration, and respond to major legislative and international developments in patent law.

Early life and legal career

Robertson was born in Washington, D.C., on May 7, 1871, and was educated in the city's public schools. He studied at George Washington University and the National University School of Law, and later received honorary degrees from National University and Bates College.

Robertson entered patent practice through the office of his father, T. J. W. Robertson, who was described in a later Patent Office biographical sketch as a prominent patent attorney and inventor. Before becoming commissioner, Robertson was a member of the patent-law firm Robertson and Johnson and served a term as president of the American Patent Law Association.

Commissioner of Patents

Robertson was appointed commissioner of patents by President Warren G. Harding and took office on April 6, 1921, following the brief tenure of Melvin H. Coulston. He remained in office through the administrations of Presidents Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, and continued for nearly four months after the inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

At the beginning of Robertson's tenure, the Patent Office faced a severe accumulation of work and a high rate of resignations among trained examiners. According to the later USPTO biographical sketch, the office was receiving the greatest number of patent applications in its history while losing examining personnel because salaries were too low for the qualifications required. In his 1921 annual report, Robertson described the Patent Office as being in a "deplorable condition". The New York Intellectual Property Law Association later traced part of its own origin to the response of New York patent lawyers to Robertson's appeal for help in securing legislation to improve Patent Office staffing and salaries.

During Robertson's term, the Patent Office obtained salary increases that reduced personnel turnover, expanded its examining staff, and increased the number of examining divisions from 49 to 65. The office also reduced the arrearage in applications awaiting action from about 11 months in April 1921 to about four months by June 30, 1933. Administrative changes during his term included increasing the number of assistant commissioners from two to three, expanding the Patent Office Board of Appeals to nine members, and creating a board of supervisory examiners to train new examiners and promote greater uniformity in Patent Office practice.

The Patent Office also changed departmental homes during Robertson's tenure. On March 17, 1925, President Coolidge issued Executive Order 4175, transferring the Patent Office from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Commerce, effective April 1, 1925.

Several patent-law changes occurred while Robertson was commissioner. The USPTO biographical sketch lists among the legislative developments of his tenure the Plant Patent Act of 1930, provisions for filing notices of patent suits in the Patent Office, marking patented articles with patent numbers, reducing the period for renewing forfeited applications from two years to one year, and shortening the time for responding to Patent Office actions from one year to six months.

Robertson was not, however, a simple advocate for every expansion of patentable subject matter. In a 1930 memorandum concerning proposed plant-patent legislation, he expressed constitutional doubts about granting patents for plants, questioning whether a plant breeder should be regarded as an inventor when the new plant was reproduced by natural processes aided by ordinary grafting methods. Legal scholar Brad Sherman later described Robertson as one of the most vocal critics of the proposed plant-patent law.

In 1925, Robertson served as chairman of the American delegation to the Hague conference that revised the international convention for the protection of industrial property. The convention text listed Robertson, then commissioner of patents and a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, as one of the plenipotentiaries for the United States, along with Wallace R. Lane and Jo. Baily Brown.

Robertson's tenure also coincided with the final disposal of many old Patent Office models. In 1925, Congress authorized the sale of large numbers of patent models after decades of storage problems. According to a 1958 account in American Heritage, the Smithsonian Institution selected about 2,500 models and other museums or inventors took about 2,600 more, while another 50,000 models were sold at auction on December 3, 1925, for $1,550. Robertson reported to Congress that the price was "thought to be a good figure".

Later life

Robertson left office on June 25, 1933, and was succeeded by Conway P. Coe. After leaving the Patent Office, he resumed the practice of patent law and lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland. In 1938, the yearbook of National University Law School listed Robertson, identified as a former commissioner of patents, as a professor of patent law.

Robertson died in December 1957.

References

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