Registration of Designs; Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Patents, United States Senate, Sixty-Fourth Congress, Second Session, on S. 6925, an ACT Providing for the Registration of Designs, [January 24, 1917]

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from ... Show synopsis This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 Excerpt: ...is one man in America that had courage enough to make original designs, because he wants his line to be original, and his reward is that he is selling more silks than anybody else in the United States; everybody is wearing it, and the name of his silk is on every bolt, and everybody else is copying it, and that is the greatest reward and the biggest compliment a competitor can pay, it seems to me, to copy another man's line. Senator Brandegee. And at the other man's expense? Miss Collatt. Yes. The Chairman. The statement was made here by one of you gentlemen that if this bill should become a law that it would keep the designers here from copying styles that Paris sent out; but you say there is no danger of Paris copying anything we do? Miss Collatt. No, sir. The Chairman. So, then, what have you to say about his argument that it would affect the trade over here to the extent that these foreign designs coming in here and being protected would sell, and our designs, not quite so enticing to the public eye, would not sell? Miss Collatt. Our designs would sell. I would not agree to the statement that they would not. I will not agree that American designs are not as beautiful as Paris designs. There is no reason why I should. Are we so commercial? Are there no artists in America? If that is the case I have nothing more to say, because I am here on behalf of the independent artists. I have worked among them: I know there are artists in America; there is no reason why America should not originate. I could name 10 people, without thinking, who have helped make this specific line of silk I am telling you about, and the retail stores sell those silks as imported. That is an evil that there is no use going into. That will simply be a matter of training the public mind... Hide synopsis