Part 1

The Magnificent Profession

by Leonard Lockhard

_Leonard Lockhard is an experienced patents attorney who can slip the glovelike surfaces of an inventor’s nightmare on his writing hand with a dexterity glorious to behold. We suspect he even does so in his dreams, chuckling right merrily until the dawn breaks through. You’ll chuckle too, we think, at one of the most uproariously funny SF yarns it has ever been our privilege to publish._

=Krome was Mr. Patent Office in person--and a hard man to needle. But Marchare’s underground diving suit had a very sharp point to it.=

The interoffice buzzer on my phone rang. It was Helix Spardleton, patent attorney extraordinary--and my boss.

“Saddle?” Helix said. “Marchare is on the phone. Take care of him, will you?” And he hung up.

For a moment I just sat there, phone in hand. Marchare! My palms were suddenly moist. Other patent lawyers had nice normal scientists to work with--people who invented new and patentable plastics, pharmaceuticals, and insecticides.

I had Marchare. My mind ran back over some of his inventions--synthetic babies, supersonic washing machines, hair-growing chemicals. Collectively they had netted him a small fortune, but they had brought nothing but headaches to me. Now he was on the phone again. Another invention undoubtedly.

My forefinger shook a little as I stabbed it at the lighted button on the phone. “Saddle speaking,” I said.

“Good morning, Carl!” came cheerily. “This is Marchare. You sound a little weak. You’re not ill, I hope?”

“Well, I’m not feeling exactly--”

“Glad to hear it. Look, I wonder if you could drop over at my lab. I’ve run across something interesting, and I think we ought to investigate the patent possibilities.”

I swallowed dryly. “What is it?”

“A diving suit.”

I pondered his reply suspiciously. Was it conceivable that “Doc” had finally thought up a beautiful routine invention for me to work with--one that wouldn’t get me all fouled up with the Patent Office? It wasn’t too likely. Still--a diving suit. How could I get into trouble with a mere diving suit? Surely I was on safe ground there.

I said, “Fine, Doc. Shall I come over now?”

“The sooner the better,” he replied. “I’ll wait for you.”

“Is there anything I should bring along? The camera?”

“Your notebook is all you’ll need,” he assured me. “I’m not yet ready to test it underground. See you soon.” He hung up.

I hung up myself and had half risen from my desk when I suddenly stiffened. _Underground._ His diving suit worked underground! I was plenty startled, but as I thought it over I decided that Marchare must have been mistaken. He’d meant _underwater_--just a slip of the tongue. Sure, that was it. Who ever heard of a diving suit that went underground? It was too fantastic.

I felt better almost immediately. I got my hat and notebook and went out into the bright sunshine and hailed a cab.

On the way to Marchare’s laboratory I did some thinking. He was a brilliant man capable of almost anything, a man who seldom made mistakes. His tongue wouldn’t slip--not on a thing like that. If he said underground he meant underground. It was a statement I had to accept.

By the time the cab pulled up in front of Marchare’s laboratory in Alexandria I knew exactly where I stood. I knew for sure that he had gone and invented a diving suit that would go underground.

“Doc” Marchare was dressed in his usual clothes, which is just another way of saying he looked as though he’d only recently got back from an unsuccessful, but jovial panhandling expedition.

“You got over here quickly, Carl. You’re anxious to get going, eh?”

I forced a sickly smile.

“That’s the spirit,” he said, thumping me on the shoulder. “Come along, let’s have a look at it.”

He led me down the hall and into a cluttered work room where Hamilton Eskew, his cadaverous assistant, was working on something that looked like a large pair of coveralls.

Marchare said, “I’ll describe the suit to you, If you have any questions just break in and ask them. It’s really quite simple.”

I said, “Uh-huh,” pulled out my notebook, flexed my fingers, and was all set.

“Externally,” he said, “it closely resembles any self-contained underwater suit. The body portion is all in one piece. The helmet clamps down over the head, and the pack on the back contains the power supply. Any power supply can be used so long as it delivers approximately ten amperes at ten thousand volts for a reasonable period of time.”

I scribbled busily. “Got it,” I told him.

“The current passes to a cabbagite crystal, then to a selector box, and finally to the surface of the suit,” he went on. “Control dials mounted inside the hands of the suit enable the operator to control the amount of current at various places on the surface.”

I broke in, “Cabbagite sounds familiar. Precisely what is it?”

“Well,” said Marchare, “I’m not quite certain. Carbon, you see, occurs in two allotropic crystalline forms--diamonds and graphite. I’ve prepared a third allotrope that I call cabbagite. It is a twinned crystal with peculiar properties, to say the least. When an electromotive force is impressed at one end of it the other end emits energy of varying wave lengths. The bombardment of this energy seems to nullify the cohesive forces between the molecules of matter.

“Up until now the only use I could find for it was in transforming oxygen to ozone. When you plug it into the wall socket, you have a wonderful cabbage-cooking deodorizer, Spardleton filed a case on that use a couple of years ago. A few weeks ago I discovered the crystal had other possibilities. I’ve now discovered that it works on solid matter as well as oxygen. The solid matter yields and flows when pushed on by a conductive object that is connected to an activated cabbagite crystal.”

I asked, “But how does the cabbagite crystal allow the diving suit to move around underground--through solid earth?”

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Eskew was shaking his head in sneering compassion for my slow-witted grasp of the technical details. But Marchare didn’t mind a bit, having had long experience with patent attorneys.

“Well,” he said, “the energy from the crystal goes first to a selector unit. From there it passes to the surface of the suit by means of thousands of tiny wire leads. These leads connect to a wire fabric imbedded in the thin rubber from which the suit is made. Is that clear?”

“Of course,” I assured him loftily, ignoring Eskew’s subdued snicker.

“The control dials work this way,” continued Marchare. “Once the diver is underground he can cut off the energy field beneath the soles of his feet. Thus he will have something solid to stand on. When he walks, though, he will have to keep the soles of his feet pointed away from the direction of his advance, or retreat, because only the ground under his soles will always be solid. Either that, or he can adjust the controls each time he moves his foot.

“The control built into the right hand will control the right half of the suit; the left-hand one will control the left, The energy field over the rest of the suit isn’t so important as long as it is strong enough to soften the surrounding earth. But even so we’re going to make it possible for the diver to control the energy field on the entire surface. That way he could even lie down if he wanted to.”

“Since you haven’t finished the suit yet,” I said, “how do you know it will work?”

Eskew looked up at me as though I had just taken a dime from a five-year-old.

Marchare never turned a hair. “Oh, it will work all right. We’ve already made a great many tests. We’ve thrust objects through walls and rocks and metals. Hamilton hasn’t actually finished the diving suit. But when he does, you can rest assured it will come up to expectations.”

“What,” I asked, “happens to the diver if the crystal stops functioning while he’s underground?”

“Now there’s a disturbing thought,” mused Marchare. “I guess the suit would be lost. Gravity would pull it down to the center of the earth.”

Eskew cackled mirthlessly. “And would the diver be burned up.”

Marchare smiled indulgently. “A card, that Hamilton. Actually, there’d be no pain. Ham has timed the air supply to fail long before the diver can reach the center of the earth.”

* * * * *

The hair on the back of my neck relaxed a little. I forced myself to consider only the legal aspects of the subject at hand. “When will the suit be ready?” I asked.

“In about four months,” grunted Eskew. “Possibly a little sooner.”

“That’s good,” I told him. “I think the Patent Office may want a demonstration. If I can prepare and file the application within the next two weeks, the Office will probably take it up just about the time the suit is ready.”

“What I don’t understand,” said Marchare, “is how we can file a patent application on something that doesn’t yet exist. Won’t it be perjury for me to sign the inventor’s oath?”

“That would depend on what oath you sign,” I told him. “Fortunately there are two kinds. In one you swear that everything in the application is true. In the second you merely swear that the object described in the specifications is your invention. I never heard of any inventor using the first kind. You don’t think Selden ever actually _made_ the automobile he patented, do you?”

“I see,” he said, with an expression that said he didn’t at all.

I looked over my notes. Mr. Spardleton had previously explained that it was useless to take notes on a new invention because the attorney’s version never agreed with the inventor’s. What was even worse, neither bore any resemblance to the hash the patent examiners would inevitably make of it. My notes were sufficiently confused to gladden the heart of any practicing patent attorney.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” I said.

I shook hands with Marchare, returned Eskew’s sneer cordially, and headed back to town. Plans for the coming tussle with the Patent Office were beginning to take shape in my head. But I foresaw no great difficulty. This was _real_ invention. Imagine. A diving suit that went underground. Even the Examiner would have to admit that this was creative originality of the highest order. He couldn’t turn me down. He wouldn’t dare.

When I got back to the office I went in and explained the whole thing to Spardleton. He heard me all the way through without an interruption. When I had exhausted my vocabulary of superlatives he sat quietly for a moment thinking. Then he said, “Yes, it seems straightforward enough. I’ll tell you what. Make a search and pull a couple of patents that describe the usual diving suits. You will be able to use large portions of the specifications.”

“How can I?” I asked. “Those patents will only describe diving suits that go underwater. They won’t--”

He cut me off with an airy wave of his hand. “Whenever you hit the word ‘underwater,’ change it to ‘underground.’ When you hit the word ‘sea,’ change it to ‘ground’ or ‘earth.’ You’ll save a lot of time that way. Okay, you’re on your own. But let me see the spec before you file it.”

I left and went over to the Patent Office to make the search. I flipped through the patents in Class 2, Subclass 2.1, and selected two patents to serve as models. I realized almost immediately that I’d be able to use large portions of them. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

During the next ten days I wrote and re-wrote. I consulted with Marchare on several occasions, and I worked closely with Eskew to make sure that his drawings would be comprehensible to a man from Mars--or a patent examiner. Even at lunch Susan, our secretary, and I talked about the diving suit and hardly anything else. I ate, slept, and breathed the suit. I became convinced that it was going to be a perfect application. The Patent Office wouldn’t get to first base with its exotic logic this time.

Susan was a gem. She never even frowned when I changed my mind several times about how best to drive home a telling point. She just tore up the old copy and made a new one from my dictation. Sometimes, though, she had a funny little half-smile on her face as though she knew something which I didn’t. I asked her about it once. She didn’t say a word, just reached over and patted me on top of the head. Somehow it made me feel like a Pekinese. But I refused to let it worry me. I was too busy creating a perfect patent specification.

The opening paragraph in my specification read:

* * * * *

_This invention relates to a suit of apparel, particularly designed for the protection of a diver, and has for its object to provide a diving suit of novel construction that may be comfortably worn by a person, be capable of yielding at all the joints of the wearer’s body, be earthproof and airtight, be self-contained as to air supply, be light, strong, and durable, afford means for the descent of a diver in various depths of dirt, and enable the deepground diver to move around freely through rock, stone, and earth of varying composition._

The final draft consisted of seven pages of drawings, ten pages of spec, and twenty-eight claims. I sat at my desk for a good thirty minutes pridefully staring at the lovely stack of papers. I read over some of the more brilliant passages, rolling the words on my tongue, amazed at what a clear picture they painted. Convinced that it was now a masterpiece of logic and persuasiveness, I took it in for Spardleton’s approval.

He picked it up and began to read. I waited confidently, convinced that he could hardly fail to see in it the sure hand of genius. He finished it far more rapidly than I would have thought possible. “_Um_,” he said, tossing it back to me, “It’ll do. File it.”

Susan made out a check for thirty-eight dollars and I mailed the whole mess to the Patent Office.

The next couple of months passed swiftly. Under Spardleton’s expert tutelage my working fund of patent knowledge blossomed and grew. I learned how to write page after page of patent specification without actually saying anything. I achieved an amazing degree of tonal control over my voice. By simply saying to an Examiner, “I don’t quite agree with you there,” I was able to suggest by the tone of my voice alone that I knew he had received his scientific education by the rudimentary osmotic process of sitting on his text books. Sometimes it worked.

Then one day Spardleton sent for me.

He was evidently busy trying to decipher an Office Action when I entered. Webster’s Unabridged stood open on its stand beside his desk and at least six volumes of the Britannica were scattered about on the floor. The desk itself was littered with thesauruses and handbooks and I noticed particularly Partridge’s _Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English_.

As soon as I walked in he asked, “Did you ever hear of the word ‘sludutiferous?’”

“I’m afraid not,” I said.

“Well, there is such a word. I found it here.” He waved vaguely at the forest of books on his desk. “And I must say I’m a little disappointed in the Examiner. I don’t know what the Patent Office is coming to when they begin using words that are actually in existence.” He looked at the initials in the upper left-hand corner of the Office Action. “Oh,” he said, brightening considerably. “Maybe that explains it. Old Nailgood. He’s just allowed several claims in Marchare’s cabbagite deodorizer case. He must be slipping fast.”

His smile vanished and his brows drew together. “Still, there’s something phony here. Cabbagite is a real invention. It’s a money maker for Marchare, and a boon to the housewife. There’s something remotely similar in the prior art. It’s very odd, therefore, that the office is willing to give us a patent on it. Unless--”

“Unless what?”

“Unless they want to allow it, in order to use the allowed claims to reject Marchare on some other application of even greater importance. Does he have any co-pending applications relating to cabbagite?”

“None that I know of,” I said.

“How about that diving suit?” I stared at him, startled, “Surely you don’t mean they’d reject a diving suit on a deodorizer? What kind of sanity is that?”

He gave me a puzzled look. “Sanity? What’s sanity got to do with it?”

I hadn’t got around to answering him when Susan walked in and handed Spardleton a letter--clearly a communication from an Examiner. He tore it open and scanned it quickly.

“Ah, hah,” he said. “Look here. This explains everything.”

I circled around behind him. It was an Office Action, all right. And it was in reference to the diving suit application.

The first thing I noticed were the initials in the upper left-hand corner: H. K. _Herbert Krome_! Mister Patent Office himself--the evil genius who handled patent lawyers the way an animal trainer handles big cats. A single glance showed me how serious--and nasty--it was.

“This application has been examined

Art cited:

Anderson et al--

1,022,997 April 9, 1912 2/2.1

Browne--

2,388,674 Nov. 13, 1945 2/2.1

Claims 1-28 are rejected as based on inoperable structure in the absence of a demonstration.

Claims 1-28 are further rejected on the allowed claims in applicant’s co-pending S.N. 162,465, directed to the cabbagite crystal. Since it is known that cabbagite rearranges matter (30₂→20₃) it would be obvious to attach it to the well-known diving suit of Browne to obtain applicant’s result.

No claim is allowed.

Examiner.

“See?” said Spardleton, his features dark, “Just as I thought. _He’s using our own application against us._”

We were quiet for a moment.

“There’s another matter,” said Spardleton. “Marchare says the Department of Defense has been dickering with him for rights under his diving suit application. I told him to stall them until he gets an allowance. If he can’t get a patent, the government can award manufacturing rights to anyone and not have to pay Marchare a nickel.

“Actually, they prefer a license under a patent: It avoids any chance of suits in the U. S. Court of Claims by twenty or more halfbaked inventors who think Defense stole the idea from them. So time is of the essence.”

I said, “If I could demonstrate a suit to Krome, I’m sure he’d allow the case immediately. But I don’t think the suit has been completed yet. Have you heard from Marchare?”

“I phoned him about it a couple of weeks ago,” said Spardleton. “He told me it wasn’t _quite_ ready. When I asked him to be specific he mumbled something about bugs in the control system.” Spardleton studied me thoughtfully.

“I can at least _show_ the suit to Krome,” I said uneasily.

“I think it’ll take more than that,” Spardleton said.

“Maybe I could fill it with rocks and let it down into the ground on a rope,” I suggested brightly.

“Krome won’t buy that.” Spardleton frowned and seemed lost in thought for a moment. “Still, if I know Krome as well as I think I do it may work out all right. You’d better arrange for an interview this afternoon, and then run out and get the suit--_as is_. Marchare said you could have it anytime.”

As I left to take care of things, a slow introspective smile was spreading over Spardleton’s face.

Each patent lawyer must develop his own technique for interviewing Examiners. Some shout and rave and rant. But that is foolhardy. One slip, and the show is over. Others play dumb and act as if they haven’t the slightest idea what the score is. That encourages the Examiner to talk himself out on a limb. Still others employ the yakety-yak system wherein they never give the Examiner a chance to open his mouth. It is a subterfuge which is only used by those who don’t dare meet the Examiner in fair and open combat. Others use the buddy-to-buddy approach in which the attorney manages to convince the Examiner that he and the Examiner--and especially the Examiner--are the only two people in the whole world who really understand patents.

After due consideration I had decided to use an absolutely unique approach, one never thought of before.

I was going to be myself.

I had a good invention, the application was well-written and everything was just as it should be. I had no need to resort to deception, or evasion. Besides, I had seen what Krome could do to attorneys with a system. He took the system, rolled it up in a compact ball, and fanned them out with it, scoring his three strikes without once unbending.

At two o’clock sharp, with the diving suit under my arm, I stepped up to Mr. Krome’s desk.

“Mr. Krome?” I inquired, with just the proper amount of rhetorical deference.

“Yes, yes. What is it?” he said without even looking up.

“I’d like to talk to you, sir, if I may. It’s about the Marchare case, the diving suit--”

I knew Krome quite well, but still he asked me coldly, “Are you the attorney of record?”

“Yes, sir,” was my instant reply. He knew I was--and he knew I knew that he knew. But it was part of his routine, and I didn’t want to irritate him by abbreviating the amenities.

“I can spare you ten minutes,” he grumbled. “I have an important appointment with the Commissioner at two-thirty.”

I said, “Ten minutes will be quite sufficient.”

“Just a second while I get the case,” he said. He got up and disappeared into the Clerk’s room.

Five minutes later he returned, and steamed back to his desk, my application clutched tightly in his hand.

“Yes,” he said, without even looking at it, “part of my rejection was on probable inoperability. Have you got a working model there?”

“I certainly have,” I replied. “Though you might not believe it even when you see it. This is absolutely the most--”

“Why won’t I believe it when I see it?” he demanded.

“Well, I just meant--”

“Is this a trick of some kind?” he bridled.

“No. Oh, no. I just--”

“Well, why won’t I believe it when I see it?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said quickly. “I meant--”

“I heard what you said. Let me remind you of Rule Three. Interviews with Examiners must be conducted with decorum. No frivolity, understand?”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “You’ll believe it. Honest you will.”

He stared at me suspiciously. “We’ll see. Bring it into the next room.” He stalked off. I picked up the box, and staggered after him into the conference room.

“Open it up,” he commanded.

I dumped the suit on the table.

He felt the texture of the cloth. “It doesn’t look like much,” he said. “And look here.” Very deliberately he stretched the diving suit out full length. “Doesn’t that look just like an ordinary diving suit?” he asked.

“Yes, but--”

“Isn’t its design similar to that of any diving suit?”

“Yes, but--”

“And a diver underground acts the same as a diver underwater.”

“Well, sure. But--”

“And, as a matter of fact, listen to this.” Krome picked up the application and read a few paragraphs to me. “Now,” he said, “all I have to do is change the word ‘underground’ to ‘underwater,’ change the word ‘ground’ or ‘earth’ to ‘sea,’ and I have a perfect description of a deepsea diving suit. Am I right?”

“I know all that,” I said. “But--”

“Well, then--there is no invention here. Once the cabbagite crystal is known it becomes so obvious that any routineer could use it in a diving suit. A new use of an old thing or an old process cannot be patented. Regar & Sons, Incorporated versus Scott and Williams, Incorporated.”

* * * * *

I protested, “But wait a minute. Wait until I demonstrate it for you. I’ll tie this rope on and then--”

“No you don’t,” he said. “You don’t pull any rope tricks on me. I’ve read the spec. I know how it’s _supposed_ to work. _I’ll_ put it on.” And he began to climb into it.

“Kindly stop opening and closing your mouth,” he said, “and help me with the helmet.”

“Please,” I gasped. “The controls aren’t--”

“Put the helmet on,” he said.

“But the controls aren’t--”

“Put the helmet on,” he insisted.