Patent No. 791.262: grant certificate for the Magès constant vacuum carburettor

In this document

The cover (p. 1)

The first page is the official cover printed by the Imprimerie Nationale, adorned with a cartouche featuring the effigy of Marianne and decorative motifs (oak leaves, columns). It bears the institutional mentions: République Française, Ministère du Commerce et de l'Industrie, Direction de la Propriété Industrielle, and the title Brevet d'Invention — Sans garantie du gouvernement. Some barely legible handwritten traces appear at the top left and above the mention "sans garantie du gouvernement", but remain [illegible].

The grant certificate (p. 2)

The patent is granted under No. 791.262 by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, in application of the law of 5 July 1844 and its successive amendments (1856, 1902, 1908, 1921).

The act refers to a report drawn up on 16 May 1935 at 15 hours 21 minutes, at the General Secretariat of the Seine-et-Oise Prefecture, the date on which the patent protection period begins to run.

Article 1 specifies that the patent is granted to "Monsieur Paul Ernest Mary Magès, 35 Avenue Édouard Branly in Chaville", for a duration of fifteen years, and concerns the invention entitled "Carburateur à dépression constante" (Constant vacuum carburettor).

In accordance with Article 11 of the 1844 law, the text explicitly recalls that the grant is made "without prior examination, at the risks and perils of the applicants and without guarantee [...] of the reality, novelty or merit of the invention".

The act is dated Paris, 23 September 1935, signed by G. Lainel, Director of Industrial Property, for the Minister. A second certification signature, difficult to read, is mentioned as "[uncertain: C. Dubosc]", accompanied by a circular stamp of the Industrial Property Directorate p. 2.

Context

As a general historical reference (outside the document): under the Third Republic, French patents were, until a later reform, granted "without government guarantee", i.e. without substantive examination of the novelty or technical validity of the invention — the State merely registering the filing and legally protecting the applicant.

In 1935, Paul Magès was 27 years old and filed this patent in a personal capacity, while he had already been at Citroën for ten years (August 1925, at 17 and a half — autobiographical notes); this personal filing precedes by several years his entry into the design office and the design of the hydropneumatic suspension, the first plans of which date from February 1944 (Hydropneumatic suspension plans with differential interaction (17 February 1944)), which would notably equip the DS presented in 1955.

Archivist's view

This document constitutes the industrial property title itself: it does not describe the invention itself but legally attests to its protection. It complements the descriptive memorandum in the same file, dated May 1935, which sets out the technical content of the carburettor.

It is one of the very first patents filed by Magès in a personal capacity p. 2, while he was already working at Citroën, and predates his later work on hydropneumatic suspension. Its documentary value lies less in its technical content — non-existent here — than in its role as an administrative milestone in Magès' career as an inventor, precisely dated 23 September 1935 p. 2.