. Spardleton was in a bad mood when I entered his office. I didn't
have a chance to say a thing before he bellowed at me, "Mr. Saddle, do
you know what a plasticizer is?"

"Why, ah, yes. It is a material, generally a solvent, that softens and
renders another material more flexible."

"That's right." His fist banged on the desk. "Yet here," he waved an
Office Action at me, "is an Examiner who says that the term
'plasticizer' is indefinite, and I must give a list of suitable
plasticizers when he knows that Rule 118 forbids me to put in such a
list. Can you imagine? He is saying in effect that a chemist who works
with synthetic resins does not know what a plasticizer is, and I must
take him by the hand and teach him something he learned in freshman
chemistry. It has nothing to do with the invention, either. I am
claiming a new kind of lens holder, and I point out that the interior of
the holder may be coated if desired with a plasticized synthetic resin
coating. My, I don't know what the Office is coming to. The Patent
Office is the only institution in the world that does not know the
meaning of the phrase 'room temperature'. Some day.... What's the
matter, Mr. Saddle?"

I had pulled up a chair and hunched down in it. Mr. Spardleton
recognized the symptoms. He put down the offending Office Action and
settled back and waited for me to tell him my troubles.

I said, "I've got a hot invention. It is a paper that will replace
cloth, strong, flexible, cheap too. We've only made one version of it,
though, and I have to file an application right away because one of
Callahan's technicians left, and we can't risk waiting."

He nodded, and I went on, describing to him all the details of the
invention and the situation. When I finished I stared morosely at the
floor. Mr. Spardleton said, "What's the problem? File a quick
application now, and later on when you have more information, abandon it
and file a good, full-scale application."

[Illustration]

I looked at him in surprise and said, "But somebody else has just as
much information as we have, and he may start to experiment right away.
That technician knows as much as we do. In another six months they could
file a complete application and beat us out on dates; they'd be first
with the complete application."

"Well, what do you propose to do about it?"

I shrugged. "I'll have to make up as good an application as I can right
now. We'll make some guesses at how the researc