Inventor Traps

No doubt many of our readers have acquired within a year or two the great and glorious title of "Honorary Member of the Parisian Inventors' Academy." One of the editors of this paper received, a short time since, a notice of his election to that exalted position, and was informed at the same time that by sending on the small sum of $10 he would receive a diploma and a "great gold medal."

The miserable style in which the printed matter of this concern is gotten up, and the fact that the circular letter is not addressed by name, and does not specify any particular invention, but is gotten up in such general terms as to apply equally well to the case of any patentee whose name and address may appear in the Patent Office Record, ought, it seems, to prevent any intelligent person from being caught by the latest humbug, but it seems the "Academy" is able to do some business. Of course there is a pretense of examination of inventions, etc., but it is all so palpably humbug that we hope none of our readers who have been "elected" (a passive and unavoidable act) have been so foolish as to send $10 and avoidable exhibition of gullibility.

There are many traps laid for those whose addresses appear in the Patent Office Record, and a luckless inventor is immediately flooded with propositions of all kinds, nine-tenths, if not all the stuff being pure and unadulterated humbug. It is a safe rule never to pay out any money nor sign any paper without knowing just what you are to receive for your money, or what the purport of your signature may be.