Mr. Chairman, if I may be so bold, I would suggest that you ask witnesses later who testify in opposition to removing the Patent Office from downtown Washington, whether given a choice of no Patent Office Building at all for the next 3 or 4 or 5 years, they would still refuse to agree to the removal of the Patent Office to some place like Anne Arundel County or Howard County.

I might raise some question, too, about how serious is this inconvenience. As you know undoubtedly, within the last year the John Hanson Highway to Annapolis has been completed. The prospectus specifies not only Anne Arundel County but Anne Arundel and Howard. The main consideration is to have a building located along an arterial highway for rapid commutation to the Office.

I might say, for example, at Chicago where I come from, most patent lawyers spend more time in commuting from their homes to the office than is required to commute from downtown Washington to this area. I am sure our employees are ready to accept this. I feel that the area, specified in the prospectus is not an unreasonable area, and I feel to repeat, that the need is so strong that a genuine concern for the problems of the Office and for the patent system itself, would require an acceptance of the site which is proposed in the prospectus. You will find statements in the appendix attached to my statement reflecting comments which have been received from the bar. They indicate that such a location would not be unacceptable. Last year before the Senate Appropriations Committee we were asked to provide an abstract of all correspondence which the Patent Office had received about the proposed relocation of the Patent Office. That has been extracted and made a part of my statement as exhibit 12.

For example, let me take a statement of the Patent-TrademarkCopyright Section of the District of Columbia Bar Association itself. This is a resolution passed at its May 15, 1962, meeting. It read as follows:

Resolved, That the Patent-Trademark-Copyright Section of the District of Columbia Bar Association advocates a suitable housing facility for the Patent Office to meet its critical needs and to provide for future expansion;

That such a suitable housing facility requires a new Patent Office building tailored to Patent Office operation needs:

That a reasonably accessible and sufficiently large site within the District of Columbia is preferable and highly desirable for the location of such new Patent Office Building;

That a continued and determined effort be directed to locating such new Patent Office Building within an accessible area in the District of Columbia : That a site outside the District of Columbia, but within the Metropolitan Washington area, should be selected only as a last resort to avoid unreasonable delay in the completion of such new Patent Office Building and to assure efficient operation, provided such site within the Metropolitan Washington area and outside the District of Columbia is reasonably convenient for the many visitors to the Patent Office and realizing certain problems are yet to be resolved relative to such site.

I maintain such a resolution shows there is an overwhelming need for a building now, although it may require location outside of the District of Columbia.

That completes my statement.

Senator YOUNG. Mr. Commissioner, may I congratulate you, first, for submitting an extremely well-prepared and thoroughly well prepared and convincing statement to this committee?

Mr. LADD. Mr. Chairman, I have been praying for this day for several years.

Senator YOUNG. Then, in addition to that, by making a very impressive oral statement to this committee.

Mr. LADD. Thank you.

Senator YOUNG. And we thank you for appearing here.
Senator Jordan, do you have any questions?

Senator JORDAN. Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of questions. I think they have been fairly well answered, but I have one here.

Have the various patent attorneys' organizations been consulted not only in locating the building but also in planning the building? I wonder if you will elaborate on this. When you said the metropolitan area of Washington, how far does that extend? Does that go to Baltimore?

Mr. LADD. Senator Jordan, I think I can tell you what is visualized by the site specified in the prospectus: "reasonable commuting distance." I would say less than an hour. And it can be, if it is anywhere within Howard or Anne Arundel Counties, with the John Hanson Highway, or the Baltimore Expressway; and also, with the imminent completion of the Circumferential Highway.

One of the things we have taken into consideration is where our employees are presently located, and where they can be predicted to move if the Patent Office were located in a place like Anne Arundel or Howard Counties. There is a heavy concentration of our employees in Northwest Washington and Arlington, and that area. Access time over the Circumferential Highway and Baltimore Expressway, or John Hanson Highway, would in many cases make commuting time to a new Patent Office in that locality compare favorably with downtown Washington. That goes also for the Patent Office

Senator JORDAN. Do those two counties adjoin the District of Columbia?

Mr. LADD. Not immediately; no, sir.

Senator JORDAN. There are counties in between those two counties and the District of Columbia.

Mr. LADD. Yes, sir. My recollection is-let me give you a direct answer, because I have a copy of the "Year 2000 Plan" here. I think Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties intervene between those two counties.

Senator JORDAN. That is all right.

Mr. LADD. It is a matter of geography.

Senator JORDAN. I just wondered why you wanted to go that far

away.

Mr. LADD. Senator Jordan, I think that the answer is, because it is possible under the schedule of priorities established for the Patent Office to be included in this fiscal year, provided it is put into a dispersed or decentralized locality like Anne Arundel or Howard Counties.

Senator JORDAN. That answers my question. Thank you very much. Senator YOUNG. Any other questions? Senator Cooper?

Senator COOPER. No questions.

Senator YOUNG. Senator Bayh?

Senator BAYH. I would like to ask a question.

Senator YOUNG. Yes.

Senator BAYH. What about the order of priorities?

Where do we stand on that as far as the priority is concerned, to locate it in the metropolitan area?

Mr. LADD. Senator Bayh, let me answer that question as best I can, according to my understanding.

As I understand it, the priorities for construction in the District of Columbia, or the National Capital region, which is defined in the "Year 2000 Plan," is based on the Cabinet Level Committee on Federal Office Space in the Capital Region, which was headed by former Secretary Goldberg. I do not know the refined, item-by-item list of priorities. All I know is, we have been informed that the Patent Office on that list of priorities for construction in the District of Columbia would not be eligible for consideration for some time. That is the best I can do to answer your question.

Senator BAYH. Do you feel that this committee allowed other values other than the work space and work conditions and need for a new building from a functional standpoint, to lessen the priority that was given this Patent Office construction?

Mr. LADD. Senator, I am sorry. I do not understand your question. Senator BAYH. If the need is so great they must have considered some other factors, such as the overall plan and the esthetic value of the building in the overall plan. If the need is great in Baltimore, it seems to me it would also be great today in the Washington area.

Mr. LADD. Senator, let me answer your question in this way: I do not know the reason why the priorities were established in the way that they were. It may well be, but I am guessing and conjecturing, that those proposals which are ahead of us could not as comfortably or readily be removed to an outlying area as the Patent Office. I do not know. I might suggest, Senator, that those questions could be probably more productively directed to the General Services Administration.

Senator BAYH. Thank you.

Senator YOUNG. Senator Nelson?
Senator NELSON. No questions.

Senator YOUNG. Thank you very much, Mr. Commissioner.
Mr. LADD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

(The documents attached to the prepared statement of Mr. Ladd as appendixes are as follows:)

EXHIBIT 1

Suite 1002 Ring Building
Washington 6, D. C.

October 13, 1961

Dear Commissioner Ladd:

It is unmistakably clear to me that the Patent Office's need for adequate space and facilities permeates and overshadows most of the many other areas requiring improvement. Adequate space and facilities is a keystone without which other improvements cannot be expected to stand as a cure to the long-run and chronic problems of the Patent Office.

The need for adequate space and facilities is urgent, but not new to the Patent Office. Its long history is punctuated with the plague of space and facilities problems. The record shows repeated struggle for solution which apparently was never realized except for short intervals. Its chronic deficiency in accommodations is, in my opinion, one of the most significant factors underlying the ineffectiveness of many past efforts to bring about lasting improvements in the Office's operations.

From 1840 to 1932, the Patent Office occupied the building at Seventh and F. Streets, N. W. The building had been specially designed and constructed to meet the need of the Office, including foreseeable expansion and additions as the activites increased. The last wing of the building was completed in 1867, twenty-seven years after the original unit was completed and occupied. It was not foreseen at the time of the building's conception that responsibilities and operations of the Patent Office would have expanded to the point where, in 1924, it required not only all available space in the Patent Office Building, but also additional space in the Land Office Building.

In 1932 the Patent Office was moved to its present location in the Department of Commerce Building. Once again provision ostensibly was made for continued growth and once again the Office has outgrown the area designed for its accommodation. From 1942 to 1946 the examining operations and some of the program service units were located in Richmond, Virginia. This move had become necessary in order to accommodate several wartime agencies in the Commerce Building. The examining operations and other units returned to the Commerce Building in 1946 with a larger staff. Though compressed into a somewhat smaller area than was occupied in 1942, all units of the Patent Office were again together in the Commerce Building.

In 1956, due to lack of available space in the Commerce Building, it was found necessary to move part of the administrative operations out of the building, this time to Temporary Building T-5 on Constitution Avenue. In 1958,

with the moving of other Commerce units out, the entire Patent Office was once more brought togehter in the Commerce Building.

Now, in 1961, the continuing search for some relief for the congested examining divisions and supporting units finds portions of the Office again moved to other buildings. The Office of Research and Development has been relocated in a building near 14th and G Streets, N. W. The Board of Appeals, Trademark Examining Operations, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and Board of Patent Interferences have been relocated in a building at 18th and K Streets, N. W. With such scattered operations, efficiency must continue to be a trade-off for limited relief of the accommodations problem.

This brief historical background shows the growth of the Patent Office as the Nation has grown and as science and technology have aided in developing commercial and industrial enterprises through the Patent System. The rapid developments of science and technology during recent years have been reflected in increased Patent Office operations, and there is little doubt that this will continue at an even more accelerated rate.

Conditions today are not unlike those which must have existed 50 years ago, when the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency, in reporting on an Investigation of the United States Patent Office in 1912, stated that:

"***it has become a settled conviction that any permanent
improvement in the quantity and quality of work done by
the Office, if done at a reasonable cost, must wait upon
provision being made for adequate office accommodations
for the force of more than 900 people employed in the
Patent Office."

It went on to recommend the erection of a new building to be used exclusively by the Patent Office and to be designed and equipped to meet the peculiar needs of the work of the Office, stating that "provision should be made for not less than 500,000 square feet of floor space and 10,000,000 cubic feet within the building".

Today, over 2,400 employees of the Patent Office are sought to be accommodated in less than the 500,000 square feet of space recognized to be needed 50 years ago. Compared with the 50 years preceding 1912, the last 50 years have brought forth over twice as many patent applications and seen the issuance of over twice as many patents of increasing complexity. Relatively speaking, accomodations for Patent Office operations have deteriorated during the past 50 years there were about 200 square feet per employee of room space of all kinds in 1912 - there are about 200 square feet per employee of room space of all kinds today but the amount of patent reference matter to be accommodated along with the people has more than tripled in 50 years. The result finds the professional patent examiner with net working space of much less than existed under the inadequate conditions of 50 years ago.

About half of total room space of all kinds today is usable as office space, as contrasted with storage and other special purpose space. In a typical examining division, almost one-third of the office space is taken up by "shoe cases". These files of reference matter must of necessity be located in close proximity to the examiners and the result is a deplorable overcrowding of highly