The Classification of Patents

The Classification of Patents carries the heading United States Patent Office. The prefatory note says that Parts A and B are designed to acquaint all persons using the Patent Office classification with the principles upon which the reclassification is proceeding. The prefatory note says Part C consists of a few tentative rules advanced with the notion of fixing classification practice within the office in certain doubtful cases.

The text says that the vast majority of available disclosures of the arts occur in patents, so the Patent Office classification must be adjusted in the main to the analysis, diagnosis, and orderly arrangement of the disclosures of patents. The text says that two pending applications claiming the same means very commonly differ in the kind and extent of disclosure, and that one application may disclose several inventions. A typical wire-nail machine, the text says, has a wire-feeding mechanism, a shearing mechanism, an upsetting (forging) mechanism, side-serrating mechanism, and pointing mechanism.