Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
U.S. Alien Property Custodian Patent Documents:
A Legacy Prior Art Collection from World War II
Part 2, Statistics.
Michael J. White, Librarian for Research Services, Engineering and
Science Library, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L
5C4. E-mail: michael.white@queensu.ca
Abstract
This is the second part of a two-part article on the origins, history and profile
of Alien Property Custodian (APC) documents during World War II. The APC was
responsible for administering American property, including patents, seized from
nationals of enemy and enemy-occupied countries. Part one covered the wartime
organization and activities of the APC, vesting orders and the agency’s patent
portfolio. Part two describes APC documents (patent applications published by U.S.
Patent Office at the request of the APC), the national and technological profiles of
these documents and snapshots of the inventors who lost and, in some cases,
regained their patent rights. APC documents are a small and little known but
historically important collection of prior art documents.
Keywords
Alien Property Custodian; Enemy Property; Patent Applications; United States Patent
Office; World War II
1.1 Introduction
The APC was created in March 1942 for the express purpose of seizing
enemy-owned and controlled property. Through the issuance of vesting orders it
1
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
quickly amassed the largest patent portfolio in the U.S. The APC’s principal goal in
managing its patents and patent applications was to disseminate the technical
information disclosed in them as widely as possible to American industry. [1] On 7
December, 1942, the one-year anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
President Roosevelt formally announced the government’s patent policy. Vested
enemy and enemy-controlled patents, Roosevelt declared, were the permanent
property of the American people and would be made available to American industry
for production and research purposes. [2] Within days of the president’s
announcement, APC Leo T. Crowley, the agency’s chief administrator, outlined the
details of the licensing program in an open letter to trade associations, chambers of
commerce and corporate boards. The APC offered royalty-free, non-exclusive
licenses to any individual or business for an administrative fee of $50 for the first
patent and $5 for each additional patent. In response to this impressive offer
Newsweek magazine dubbed Crowley the “Patent Santa Claus.” [3]
1.2 APC Moves to Publish Vested Applications
The campaign to promote the use of vested patents was already well
underway by December 1942. However, there was a serious legal obstacle to the
dissemination of information contained in vested patent applications: under U.S.
patent law, pending patent applications remained confidential until a patent was
granted, a process that could take months or even years. Rather than wait for the
normal legal process and deny American industry access to potentially important
technical information, the APC instructed the Patent Office to publish copies of all
vested pending applications and make them available for sale to the public. The
Patent Office complied and on 20 April, 1943, it published the first set of APC
documents consisting of 285 applications in Class 260, Organic Chemistry. Another
2,679 applications in classes 1-309 were published from 27 April through 13 July,
2
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
1943, for a total of 2,964 documents. The Patent Office published APC documents on
Tuesday, the same day it issued patents, and included lists of these documents in
the Official Gazette. These lists were arranged by patent class and APC document
number, and included title of the invention, principal inventor, inventor city and
country of residence and publication date.
Not all vested applications were published. Applications owned by APCcontrolled companies, such as General Aniline & Film, Rohm & Haas and the Schering
Corporation were exempted from the APC’s directive. These companies continued to
prosecute their own applications under the direction of the APC. Wartime invention
secrecy rules prohibited the publication of some applications due to their importance
to national security. Also not included were the approximately 800 vested
applications that issued as patents prior to April 1943. Although the APC vested a
small number of applications after July 1943, there is no evidence that these were
ever published. This may be explained, in part, by the fact that many of these
applications were divisional applications based on previously published APC
documents. Virtually all vested applications were for utility inventions. One plant
patent application (APC 443,971) for a rose was seized from Dutch horticulturist
Johan Hendrik Kluis. Only a handful of design patent applications were vested, most
after January 1943, but none appear to have been published. This is possibly due to
their perceived limited technical and commercial value.
The lukewarm response of American companies to the licensing program may
also have deterred the APC from publishing applications vested after July 1943. In
that month, the APC changed its licensing fee to a flat $15 per patent or application
in hope of generating more interest among American businesses. [4] From January
1943 through 30 June, 1946, the APC issued only 2,012 licenses covering 7,903
vested patents and patent applications, or approximately 17 percent of the total. [5]
3
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
1.2 Format of APC Documents
The format of published APC applications closely resembles contemporary
patents. (See Figure 1.) The first page consists of the first drawing sheet. Printed in
the upper left corner are the publication date and the initials A.P.C. In the opposite
corner is the application serial number, which does double duty as the APC document
number. The inventor’s name, title of the invention and filing date appear in the top
center of the page. The signatures of the inventor and his or her patent attorney
appear at the bottom. The remaining drawing sheets, if any, follow the front page
and carry the same information in the header. As is true with patents, not all APC
documents have drawings.
[Insert Figure 1. Facsimile of Claude Dornier’s published patent application
(APC 231,882) for a twin-engine aircraft, a design later used in the Do 335
fighter. (Drawing page and one page of the specification.)]
Following the drawing pages is the written specification. The publication date
and serial number again appear in the top left and right corners, respectively.
Immediately below the date and serial number is the phrase “Alien Property
Custodian,” presumably to distinguish APC documents from patents issued by the
Patent Office. Next appears the title of the invention, the inventor name, inventor
city and country of residence, assignee information and filing date. The main body of
the specification is formatted in two columns with line numbers at increments of 5
appearing in the margin between the columns. The serial number appears at the top
center of subsequent pages.
APC documents deviate in format from issued patents in two important
respects. First, the claims have been omitted from the specification. APC documents
also lack a proper patent classification, although copies obtained from the USPTO
have a stamped class number in the upper left corner of the front page. This may
have been applied by Patent Office or APC staff as an aid in organizing APC
4
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
documents by subject matter. The lack of a proper patent classification on APC
documents is inexplicable, although it may be related to the absence of claims in the
specification or the fact that the Patent Office had no procedure for assigning
classifications to pending applications. In spite of the lack of claims and classification,
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office considers APC documents prior art and
provides instructions for citing them in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure.
[6]
1.4 APC Documents: Profile and Analysis
The existence of this small collection of published patent applications raises a
number of interesting questions. First and foremost, of the 2,964 vested applications
published in the spring of 1943 by the Patent Office, how many eventually issued as
patents and how many were abandoned? What technologies, inventors and countries
did they represent? What is their value as prior art and how frequently are they cited
in patents?
Exploring these and other questions is difficult because, to the best of the
author’s knowledge, APC documents were not indexed in sci-tech literature indexes,
such as Chemical Abstracts and Inspec, or patent databases. It also appears that
they were not classified in the public search files of the U.S. Patent Office, although
the USPTO does retain a bound set of APC documents in its public search facilities in
Alexandria, Virginia. Only a few other institutions are known to have complete sets of
APC documents; these include the British Library, the Linda Hall Library in Kansas
City, Missouri, and the Boston Public Library.
In order to analyze the APC document collection, the author created a
Microsoft Access database containing bibliographic data obtained from the lists of
APC patent applications published in the Official Gazette from 20 April through 13
July, 1943. Database fields included class, serial number, title, inventor name,
5
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
inventor city and country of residence and publication date. Data was input exactly
as it appeared in the Official Gazette; variant spellings of inventor and city names
were not standardized. A version of the database is available online. [7]
In order to determine the number of APC documents that may have issued as
patents, a random sample of 300 APC document serial numbers was selected. The
serial number of each selected document was then searched in the EPO’s
esp@cenet® patent database. If a match was found, the patent number and date of
issue was recorded. If no match was found, further searches were conducted in the
USPTO PatFT database, the Official Gazette and the Annual Index of Patents. Of the
300 selected documents, 127, or 42 percent, were matched with issued patents. This
suggests that up to 58 percent of APC published applications were abandoned and
have no equivalent issued patent. The APC annual report for 1952 indicates that as
of 30 June 1,683 patent applications were still being prosecuted while 529 had been
permanently abandoned. [8] The current evidence suggests that no patents based on
published vested applications were issued after 1953.
As noted above, the USPTO considers APC documents to be valid prior art and
provides explicit instructions for citing them in patents. Although the USPTO did not
classify APC documents in its public print or electronic search files, it is likely that
patent examiners placed copies of APC documents in their own search files. The fate
of these examiner-held copies, if they exist, is unknown. Over the years, applicants
and patent examiners have cited APC documents using a variety of formats. This
makes it difficult to determine the number and frequency of APC documents that
appear in patents. However, it is possible to make a rough estimate using a variety
of search strategies in multiple databases. Searches in the USPTO Issued Patents
(PatFT) database located about 100 patents issued since 1970 that cite APC
documents. Searches in Google Patents retrieved approximately 1,200 patents
issued since 1947—when references were first included in printed patents—that cite
6
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
APC documents. The most recent patent (6,403,230) that cites an APC document
was issued on 11 June, 2002. The cited APC document was APC 174,078, a “method
of treating aluminum girders for use in airships,” published on 5 May, 1943.
The country and technology profiles of APC documents are similar to that of
vested patents. A total of 23 countries, including Great Britain, Switzerland and the
United States, are represented. (See Table 1.) Slightly more than 60 percent, or
1,756, of APC documents were filed by German inventors, including residents of
Austria after 1938. The other top ten countries included France (17.21 percent), Italy
(6.51 percent), the Netherlands (5.84 percent), Hungary (2.34 percent), Japan (2.29
percent), Czechoslovakia (1.42 percent), Denmark (1.42 percent) and Belgium (1.21
percent). Four countries, Greece, Monaco, Hong Kong and Slovakia, had one
application each.
Table 1. APC Documents Ranked by Country of Inventor Residence.
Country
Published
Applications
Percent
Grand total
2,964
100%
Germany1
France
Italy
Netherlands2
Hungary
Japan
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
Belgium
Norway
United States
Switzerland
Philippines
Great Britain
Rumania
Poland
Yugoslavia
China (occupied)
Luxembourg
Greece
Monaco
1,756
509
190
159
70
68
42
42
36
29
9
8
7
5
4
4
3
2
2
1
1
60.66%
17.21%
6.51%
5.84%
2.34%
2.29%
1.42%
1.42%
1.21%
.98%
.3%
.27%
.24%
.17%
.13%
.13%
.1%
.07%
.07%
.03%
.03%
7
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
Hong Kong
Slovakia
1
2
1
1
.03%
.03%
Including residents of Austria, 1938-1945.
Including residents of the Dutch East Indies.
APC documents span all technologies ranging from apparel to electron
microscopes and aircraft designs to toy trains. Five of the top ten classes are related
to chemistry and plastics, emphasizing the importance of these fields in the 1930s
and early 1940s. (See Table 7.)
Table 2. Top Ten Classes by Number of APC Documents.
Class
260
18
250
204
106
244
23
235
74
175
123
Class Title
APC Published
Applications
Chemistry, carbon compounds
Plastics
Radiant energy
Chemistry, electrical and wave energy
Plastic compositions
Aeronautics
Chemistry
Registers
Machine elements and mechanisms
Electricity, general applications
Internal-combustion engine
345
109
91
81
64
62
60
58
58
57
51
Percent
of Total
(2,964)
11.64%
3.68%
3.07%
2.73%
2.16%
2.09%
2.02%
1.96%
1.96%
1.92%
1.72%
Not surprisingly, Germany ranked first in most technologies but was
especially dominant in organic chemistry, aeronautics, plastics and radiant energy
(electromagnetic devices), e.g. electron microscopes. Approximately one third of APC
documents originating in Germany were filed by inventors residing in metropolitan
Berlin, Frankfurt-am-Main and Ludwigshafen, centers of German chemical and
electronics research. A significant number of German APC documents disclose
ground-breaking innovations in electromagnetic devices and synthetic materials. For
example, two applications (APC 401,781 and 321,239) filed by Dr. Ernst Ruska, a
young scientist working for Siemens, disclosed inventions relating to electron
microscopes. From 1939 through early 1942, Ruska received an impressive 35
8
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
patents for electronic microscopes and related technologies. In 1986, he was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work in designing the first
electron microscope. [9] Ruska earned more than 110 U.S. and European patents for
Siemens during his long and productive career.
In the field of synthetic fibers, Dr. Paul Schlack, an I.G. Farben researcher
noted for inventing nylon 6, one of the first commercially produced nylon products,
contributed ten APC documents. Dr. Schlack’s applications cover linear polyamides
(APC 370,142), polyesters (APC 397,741) and cyctic amidines (APC 336,001). The
Patent Office issued eight patents assigned to the APC. After the war, Schlack
continued his research at Farberke Hoechst AG, eventually earning several dozen
additional patents in the U.S. and Europe. The German inventor with the most vested
applications (14) and the second highest total after the French engineer Charles
Waseige was Winfrid Hentrich, a chemist working in the fields of dyes, soaps and
detergents. During his career he received an impressive 212 patents. Many of
Hentrich’s pre-war patents were assigned to I.G. Farben, General Aniline Works and
soap maker Henkel & Cie. During the war the Patent Office issued patents on 11 of
Hentrich’s vested applications.
German automotive and aeronautics designers are well represented in APC
documents, among them Ferdinand Porsche, Fritz Nallinger, Erwin Komenda, Claude
Dornier and Paul Focke. Ferdinand Porsche is perhaps best-known for developing
Germany’s first mass-market automobile, the Volksauto, at the request of Adolf
Hitler. [10] He and his company were also closely associated with the development
of tanks and armoured vehicles during the war. The Panzerjäger Tiger(P), a heavy
assault gun designed by Porsche, was nicknamed the “Ferdinand” in his honour.
Appropriately, Porche’s only APC document (APC 260,252) discloses the design of a
tractor steering mechanism. The APC documents of Erwin Komenda, a close
associate of Ferdinand Porsche and the long-serving chief of the Porsche body design
9
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
department, include automobile bodies (APC 283,011) and interiors (APC 273,885).
Komenda’s designs would later achieve their fullest expression in the 1950s and
1960s in the Volkswagen Beetle, Porsche 350 and Porsche 911. Komenda was also a
member of the Porsche design team that created the Kübelwagen, the German
Army’s equivalent of the U.S. jeep, and the Schwimmwagen, an amphibious car also
used by the military. He received about 100 patents during his lifetime.
Fritz Nallinger, an engineer at Daimler-Benz, is listed on 10 APC documents,
the fifth highest ranking total. Nallinger’s designs include internal combustion
engines (APC 332,506), drive mechanisms for aircraft engines (APC 330,323) and
clutch transmissions (APC 196,718). Nallinger worked for Daimler-Benz for 43 years,
finally retiring in 1965. He received dozens of patents during his career and is best
known for the development of all-round independent suspension, collapsible
automobile chassis frames, a safety feature designed to absorb the shock of impact
in a collision, and high-speed diesel engines. There is evidence that Nallinger also
worked on Hitler’s “wunderwaffen,” futuristic weapons the Führer dreamed of using
against the Allies in retaliation for the bombing of German cities. Recently, a German
researcher has rediscovered Nallinger’s technical drawings of the “Amerika Bomber,”
a jet-powered, long-range bomber capable of attacking the U.S. [11]
German aircraft pioneer Claude Dornier is credited on eight APC documents,
including a design for an aircraft with pusher and puller propellers driven by two
engines located in the nose and tail of the fuselage (APC 231,882). This unique
configuration closely resembles the Dornier Do 335 “Arrow,” an advanced fighter
Dornier designed for the Luftwaffe in 1943-44. (See Figure 2.) Capable of a
maximum speed of 474 mph (763 km/h), the Do 335 was much faster than Allied
fighters, but its late deployment in the final weeks of the war meant that it had
virtually no chance of preventing Germany’s final defeat. Dornier’s other APC
10
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
applications cover air brakes (APC 252,298), aircraft engines (APC 226,191) and
fuselage designs (APC 283,962).
[Insert Figure 2. Dornier Do 335A Fighter Captured by U.S. Forces in 1945.
Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University.]
APC documents related to rotary-winged aircraft, a relatively new branch of
aeronautics in the 1930s, include a control mechanism for helicopters (APC 272,042)
invented by Henrich Focke, co-founder of the Focke-Wulf company. Focke designed
numerous aircraft, including several successful early helicopters. Other German
helicopter designs in the APC files include Austrian engineer Raoul Hafner’s narrowbodied helicopter (APC 223,406) and Anton Flettner’s helicopter (APC 254,867). The
Patent Office granted both Hafner’s patent (2,338,935) and Focke’s patent
(2,338,923) on 11 January, 1944. Flettner’s application apparently was abandoned
but is cited in about a dozen later patents. All three men continued their productive
careers after the war. In the 1950s and 60s, Hafner produced numerous helicopterrelated patents for the Westland Aircraft and Bristol Aircraft companies. Focke lived
in Brazil from 1951-1956 where he designed and patented helicopter technology for
the Brazilian Air Force. Flettner, whose company produced helicopters for the
Germany military until 1945, immigrated to America after the war and worked as a
consultant and researcher for the U.S. military until his death in 1961. [12] In
addition to his contributions in the field of helicopters, he is also known for his work
on auto-gyro aircraft and aircraft controls.
Another prolific German inventor found in the APC files is Felix Grandel,
founder of the Dr. Grandel Company, a manufacturer of natural health and beauty
products. Grandel’s 13 applications cover various methods for making vitamin
preparations (APC 358,279), preparing fats and oils for injection (APC 360,386) and
obtaining castor oil from castor beans (APC 340,847). Many of Grandel’s patents
were abandoned, but the Patent Office did issue patents for his process of preparing
11
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
peptone acides and their salts (2,356,581) and a method of preparing anhydrous
compounds of penitols (2,375,915). In the 1950s and 1960s, Grandel obtained
several additional U.S. patents, including a method of making germ flakes
(2,879,167) and pasta infused with wheat germ (2,819,969). Today, Dr. Grandel is
an international company with branches and subsidiaries in more than 40 countries.
[13]
Perhaps the most interesting German inventor to be caught in the
government’s dragnet was Fritz von Opel, the son of Wihelm von Opel and grandson
of Adam Opel, leading pioneers in the German automobile industry. Born in 1899,
Fritz von Opel studied engineering at the technical university in Darmstadt; after
graduation he joined the family firm, becoming Opel’s director of testing and, later,
head of publicity, an assignment that appealed to his flamboyant personality. In the
1920s, he developed an interest in using rockets for company publicity stunts. With
the help of the Spaceflight Society, an amateur rocket association whose members
included the future rocket scientist Werhner von Braun, von Opel built and drove
several rocket-powered cars in 1928. In September 1929, he achieved international
fame for piloting the RAK.1, the world’s first rocket-powered aircraft. [14]
Following the purchase of Opel by the General Motors Corporation in 1929,
von Opel lost interest in rocketry and the automobile business and “retired” to Saint
Moritz, Switzerland. In May 1940, von Opel, traveling under a Lichtenstein passport,
left Europe and settled in New York City. For the next two years, von Opel and his
wife Maria lived comfortably in the U.S., dividing their time between their homes in
New York City and Palm Beach, Florida. During this period von Opel had a burst of
inventive energy, filing six patent applications including a gasoline dispensing device
(APC 357,110), sheet metal fasteners (APC 431, 625 and APC 447,499), injection
molding machines (APC 371,118 and APC 405,458) and a movable position finding
12
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
device (APC 427,088). These applications account for six of the ten seized by the
APC from enemy nationals living in the U.S.
In February 1942, government agents arrested the von Opels, who now
claimed Luxembourg citizenship, at their Palm Beach home. Five months later, the
APC seized von Opel’s patent applications. The gasoline dispensing device was issued
a patent (2,307,435) on January 5, 1943 and the remaining five applications were
published by the Patent Office several months later. In March 1945, APC patent
attorneys filed a divisional application (584,599) based on von Opel’s 1942
application (APC 431,625) for a sheet metal fastener. Interestingly, von Opel’s
residence in the application is given as Algiers, Louisiana. Both von Opels spent most
of the war in civilian internment camps. Based on the residence information in his
1945 application, it is likely that Fritz was living in Camp Algiers, an internment camp
outside of New Orleans administered by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service. The residents of Camp Algiers included significant numbers of German Jews
and anti-Nazis who had been harassed by pro-Nazis in other internment camps. [15]
Following his release in 1945, von Opel made several unsuccessful attempts to
reclaim his property, including his patents and a Massachusetts brewery. He
eventually returned to Switzerland where he continued to invent, obtaining several
French, German, Swiss and U.S. patents for skis, ski bindings and sailboat cleats. He
died in Switzerland in 1971.
France’s top fields were organic chemistry, electromagnetic devices and
aeronautics. More than 50 percent of French APC documents were filed by inventors
residing in Paris, Lyon, Neuilly-sur-Seine and Clichy. The inventor from any country
with the highest total number of published applications (19) was French aeronautics
designer Charles Raymond Waseige, chief engineer at the Henri and Maurice Farman
aircraft works in Billancourt, a suburb of Paris. Waseige was a prolific inventor with
more than 50 U.S. patents issued from the 1920s through the 1940s. Of the 19
13
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
Waseige applications published by the APC, 15 became patents, the last (2,454,293)
being a multi-drive gear box for auxiliary accessories on aircraft issued on 11
November, 1948. Other well-known French aircraft designers in the APC files include
Émile Dewoitine and World War I ace René Fonck. Fonck’s design for a fighter plane
with fixed forward and rearward pointing guns was issued a patent (2,358,919) on
26 September, 1944. Dewoitine developed several advanced fighters for the French
Air Force, including the Dewoitine D.520. His application (APC 323,301) for a
hydroplane with folding wings appears to have been abandoned but his second
application for a machine for milling flanges on airplane wing spars was granted a
patent (2,356,571) on 22 August, 1944. Accused of collaborating with the Germans,
Dewoitine left France in 1944 and moved to Spain and then Argentina. He eventually
returned to France and died there in 1979.
After Charles Waseige, France’s most prolific inventors in the APC files were
Marcel Schlumberger and Jacques Couëlle. Schlumberger and his brother Conrad
were pioneers in the development of seismic measuring devices for mapping
subsurface rock formations, a technology that greatly advanced the science of oil
exploration and production. In 1934, they founded the Schlumberger Well Surveying
Corp. and in 1940 moved the company to Houston, Texas. In 1941, the American
Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers awarded the Schlumbergers the
Anthony F. Lucas gold medal in recognition of their achievements. [16]
Schlumberger’s APC applications disclose designs for explosive cartridges (APC
403,648), well casing perforators (APC 403,650), and coring tools (APC 271,524)
used in well drilling. Today, Schlumberger Limited and its subsidiary companies are
recognized as the world leaders in project management, information services and
drilling technology for the oil and gas industry.
Jacques Couëlle was a French architect specializing in faux historical buildings
and avant-garde structures. His APC applications cover methods for constructing
14
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
light timber frameworks (APC 450,223), a structural design that imparted greater
strength and flexibility to reinforced concrete (APC 432,392) and tubular elements
made of clay (APC 432,393). In addition to four U.S. patents, Couëlle’s building
structures, frames and supports would receive dozens of patents in Europe in the
1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s, Couëlle designed Castellaras le Vieux, a community
of homes built to resemble an old Provençal village, and Castellaras Le Neuf, a
collection of modern, cave-like dwellings derided by some as atomic fallout shelters.
[17]
The French television engineer Henri Georges de France of Lyon tied Couëlle
with seven vested applications. His inventions include television receivers (APC
428,973) and transmission systems (APC 429,583). In the decades after the war, de
France was influential in the development of television in Europe and is credited with
inventing SECAM, the color television standard adopted in the 1960s by France, the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Four of de France’s vested applications were
abandoned but three were issued patents, the final (2,582,013), issued on 8
January, 1952, disclosed a motion picture projector for the successive projection of
multiple films. During his career he obtained approximately 131 patents worldwide,
including several he reclaimed from the APC.
Italy and the Netherlands were the third and fourth countries with the highest
number of published applications. APC documents seized from Dutch inventors were
concentrated in organic chemistry, electromagnetic energy and electronics. Nearly
one third of Dutch applications vested by the APC originated in Eindhoven, home of
Philips Electronics. However, the Dutch inventor with the most APC documents, a
Julius Wolff of Anstenrade, specialized in more traditional subject matter: sausage
making. The Patent Office granted patents on four of his seven improvements in
making artificial sausage casings (2,350,857, 2,460,480, etc.). The Netherlands
contributed the only known plant patent application (APC 443,971), a new variety of
15
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
dwarf rose plant resistant to disease and mildew, seized by the APC. The inventors,
Johan Hendrik Kluis and Anthony Kluis of Boskoop, were granted a patent (PP707) in
1946. Johan had received two earlier patents (PP276 and PP415) for hydrangea
plants in 1937 and 1940. In 1949, the APC transferred ownership of the 1946 patent
to a Gerard K. Klyn of Ohio; Mr. Klyn’s relationship to the Hendriks is not known, but
he is described in the patent as having conducted field trials on the plant.
Plastics, organic chemistry and aeronautics are common themes in APC
documents seized from Italian inventors. Italian chemist Guilio Natta’s inventions
cover the production of glycerol (APC 295,616), butadiene (APC 340,228) and ketoalcohols (APC 340,225). Natta, one of the most prolific scientists of the 20th
Century, was awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discoveries in the
field of polymers. He would eventually earn more than 500 patents and publish over
500 scientific papers during his career. [17] In the field of aeronautic safety,
Giuseppe Lisi’s applications (APC 357,045 and 340,196) disclose designs for
parachutes with variable surfaces. He received two patents (2,371,898 and
2,342,287) on 22 February, 1944 and 20 March, 1945.
The Italian inventor with the most vested applications was Dr. Antonio Ferretti
of Milan. Ferretti’s numerous applications (APC 348,993, 348,994, 382,773, etc.)
cover innovations in artificial textiles and fibers, specifically the manufacture of
synthetic wool from casein, a protein found in milk and cheese. Ferretti’s discovery in
the mid-1930s was a boon to Italian textile manufacturers who were experiencing
great difficulty importing wool on account of international sanctions imposed after
Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. Snia Viscosa, Italy’s largest textile firm, purchased
Ferretti’s patents and produced the material under the commercial name Lanital.
Lanital was hailed as miracle fabric and a solution to surplus stocks of dairy products.
It was warm and soft like natural wool but did not shrink when wet. However, its
threads were said to be much weaker and more susceptible to bacterial attack than
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Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
wool fibers. Nevertheless, Snia Viscosia, with the support of the Italian government,
announced plans to establish Lanital manufacturing plants worldwide. [19] The war
curtailed Lanital’s global ambitions and its fortunes in the post-war years suffered
from the development of better synthetic fibers. Seven of Dr. Ferretti’s applications
issued as patents assigned to the APC. He received numerous patents in Europe,
Canada and the U.S. through the 1950s.
Few APC applications disclose designs for weapons, ordnance, ammunition
and explosives, which is not surprising given the tendencies of governments in the
1930s and 1940s to classify their military technologies. The German engineer Hugo
Schmeisser, co-inventor of the Schmeisser MP40 submachine gun, one of the most
famous small-arms of World War II, surrendered just one application for a device for
controlling gas pressure in automatic weapons (APC 361,184). Switzerland-based
weapons designer Wolfgang Rossmanith’s APC documents include designs for antitank rifles (APC 357,976), rapid-firing guns (APC 285,144) and a telescopic site for
guns (APC 271,134). Several of Rossmanith’s pre-war patents for various firearm
improvements were assigned to Rheinmetall-Borsig A.G. of Dusseldorf, Germany.
Rheinmetall manufactured small arms, guns and artillery pieces for the Germany
military; one of its best known products was the famed German 88mm antiaircraft/anti-tank gun.
In addition to the dozens of well-known and accomplished inventors in the
APC files, there are hundreds of unknown characters and forgotten inventions. For
example, who was King Theodor Limm of Soerabaja, Netherlands East Indies and
why was he interested in improvements to metallic tins (APC 415,522)? Did Otto
Lesser of Berlin achieve commercial success with his breeches (APC 434,119)? What
ever became of Demeter Apostolou’s device for neutralizing the inertia of a vehicle
body. And why was James P. Robinson in Tokyo, Japan in 1941 developing medicinal
applicators (APC 388,441)?
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Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
1.5 Conclusion: the Future of APC Documents
APC documents are orphans. For a few brief years in the mid-1940s, they
were the centerpiece of a high-profile government program to disseminate enemy
technical information. Today, however, few remember them and perhaps even less
care why or how they came to be. The agency responsible for their creation, the
Alien Property Custodian, no longer exists, its mission and activities a mere footnote
in the vast history of World War II. APC documents resemble patent documents but
they are not patents; they have never been classified with other patent documents.
The agency that published them, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, has chosen
not to integrate them into its paper or electronic patent search systems. They do not
appear in sci-tech and patent literature databases. Few print search tools exist for
searching them.
APC documents do have value and more can and should be done to make
them accessible to the public, historians, patent attorneys and patent information
professionals. They are considered prior art, although they are cited infrequently in
patents. (Would that be the case if they were classified with other patent
documents?) APC documents are potentially valuable to historians of 20th Century
science and technology. They provide a snapshot of technology in the 1930s and
1940s, some of which may not have been published in patents or other scientific and
technical publications. Most importantly, APC documents are primary sources that
document a unique event in the history of the U.S. patent system, a time of national
crisis when the U.S. government overruled patent regulations and seized patent
rights.
Although the author’s initial research suggests that the majority of APC
documents were abandoned, further investigation is required. A systematic search of
all APC documents must be undertaken in order to determine the exact number that
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Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
became patents. Fortunately, this task is made easier by the availability of patent
databases such as the EPO’s esp@cenet® system and Google Patents. It is the
author’s intent to add this information to his existing database of APC documents.
The small number of complete sets of APC documents in libraries and archives
worldwide makes them vulnerable to accidental loss, damage or destruction. In order
to ensure their long-term preservation, the next logical step would be a project to
scan and digitize all extant APC documents. Fortunately, there are currently several
large-scale digital scanning projects underway that might accomplish this task,
provided that one of the participating libraries owns a complete set of APC
documents. If such a project is accomplished, APC documents will last well into the
21st Century and beyond.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the following individuals for their assistance in
the researching of this paper: Jan Comfort, Clemson University; Marie Ghilini,
European Patent Office; Neil Massong and Tom Turner, U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office; Shannon Stipe, Linda Hall Library; and Stephen van Dulken, The British
Library.
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Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
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20
Citation: White, M. (2008). U.S. Alien Property Custodian patent documents: A legacy prior art
collection from World War II – Part 2, statistics. World Patent Information, 30, 2008, 34-42.
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[19] Caesin fiber plant for the U.S. is planned. New York Times, 24 November, 1937:
21