Message on the Relocation of the Patent Office.

[Released April 11, 1932. Dated April 8, 1932] My dear Mr. Secretary:

My dear Mr. Secretary

I wish to extend, through you, my greetings to those who are meeting next Monday in celebration of the moving of the Patent Office from its old quarters into the new Commerce Building. It is particularly fitting that this move from the former inadequate quarters to a building provided with every facility to meet the modern conditions oœ the patent world should take place during the bicentennial celebration of the anniversary of the birth. of George Washington, our first President, who, at the first session of the Congress urged the enactment of a statute granting patents for inventions. It is also fitting that the celebration should take place on the 142nd anniversary of the signing by President Washington of the first patent statute. Our patent system has been so beneficial in carrying out the Constitutional purpose of promoting "the progress of science and the useful arts," that another great President, Abraham Lincoln, classed the discovery of America, the invention of printing, and the establishment of the patent system as three incidents in the history of the human race that were of preeminent consequences.

I wish you to extend to the inventors, engineers, manufacturers, patent lawyers, and other friends of the patent system, my felicitations in their celebration of the moving of the Patent Office into the new building. Yours faithfully,

HERBERT HOOVER

[Honorable Robert P. Lamont, Secretary of Commerce, Washington, D.C.]