Chapter M: HEEMSKERK AZN replies to M. Godefroi, and does not see why he should (3)

According to our way of viewing the case, the registration of inventive novelties should be encouraged on other grounds than that already specified. We hold the record of failures to be of, at least, equal importance to the record of successes. Anybody who has given much time to promote invention will, we are sure, coincide in our opinion, that the knowledge of what others have been unable to accomplish in some particular line of invention is one of the most likely conditions of his own success. This collateral value of failures does not seem to have been heeded by those who are most prominent amongst the advocates of Patent abolition. From matters of undisputed non-success, we pass now to the consideration of others confessedly of some value, but the importance of which is trivial. In respect to such it is argued by Mr. Macfie that they much embarrass the manufacturer by needlessly stopping the way until terms can be come to with the inventor. The plausibility of this reasoning we fail to see. Does not the assumed worthlessness of an invention of the series contemplated bar the need of coming to terms with the inventor at all? What manufacturer in his senses would treat for the use of an invention that he knows to be worthless—such foreknowledge being a postulate on which the argument is raised, and on which the objection turns? The national value of a readily-accessible and classified record of invention must be obvious to all. Those who would desire to uphold the Patent-Laws, and those who would wish to abolish them, must alike coincide in this point. We insist upon this part of the subject all the more strenuously from the conviction that the upholding the abrogation or modification of the Patent-Laws will turn, after all, on considerations of public expediency, not on considerations of right and wrong to individual inventors. This being so, the collateral value of Patent-Laws, in establishing a record of inventive progress, cannot be too prominently kept in view.

PATENT RIGHTS AND PATENT WRONGS.

Sir,—On page 279, in speaking of steel rails, you say: “Could a better result than that achieved by Mr. Bessemer, and by those who hold licences under him, have been arrived at under the ‘No-Patent’ system?” Decidedly not, for it has landed them in wealth; but I will suppose a by no means improbable case. Suppose Belgian manufacturers had secured Patent-rights in England, and demanded a royalty preventing English manufacturers from selling their steel rails, as you state, under 12_l._ per ton, when without such royalty they could be sold at 9_l._ per ton. Now, the case would stand thus: the Belgian manufacturers could be supplying the world with steel rails at 9_l._ per ton, while the English manufacturers were prevented _by their own laws for fourteen years_ from manufacturing them under 12_l._ per ton, although all the materials were lying at their doors, and both masters and men wanting the work. If England wishes to maintain her position in the trading and manufacturing world, monopolies and prejudice must be things of the past....

You will say the inventor has a right to the invention. Granted; there were no laws to prevent him from finding it out, and getting all the advantage he could out of it, and there ought not then to have been a law made to prevent any one else finding out the process or improving upon it. I cannot see the right of giving anyone the power to block the public highway of thought and enterprise. Necessity is the mother of all useful inventions, and if steel rails were required, English manufacturers would have soon found out how to make them, without a Patent Law to help them.

R. R. S.

—From the _English Mechanic_.

REPORT OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF COLOGNE ON THE PATENT QUESTION.

For the following translation I am indebted to the Hon. J. C. Heustler, of the Legislative Council of Queensland:—

The resolution to abolish Patents on inventions, arrived at by the Chamber of Commerce of Cologne, at their sitting of the 15th Sept., 1863, has been confirmed in a report to the Ministry of Commerce, as follows:—

The Patent is a monopoly, and if it has been said in its favour that it is justifiable and only temporary, it is, notwithstanding, subject to all the disadvantages in its consequences which are common to all monopolies.

Endeavours to compete in the sphere of inventions are suddenly checked by Patents, while, on the other hand, many a patentee, instead of continuing to work with zeal, and to advance in the direction commenced, simply occupies himself to watch with jealousy possible infringements of others on his monopoly during the currency of his Patent.

Consumers pay exorbitant prices during a number of years for the manufacture so patented, or receive the same in a less perfect condition than would be the case if competition had exercised its wholesome influence on the manufacture of the article in question. It may be rejoined, that nobody is forced to buy the patented article, or to make use of the patented invention; also that the common weal would profit more by the utilisation of an invention, even if burthened for a period of from five to fifteen years, than not have it in use at all.

To this it could be replied, with good reason, that with the constant activity which working minds develop upon all fields of industry, the invention of it would have been made shortly after by B, and by him possibly would have been brought to light in still greater perfection. If the invention of A, however, is patented, the inventive perfectioning of the object by B must rest until the expiration of A’s Patent.

The more an invention is to the purpose for general adaptability, the more reasonable appears the supposition that others would have arrived at the same invention.

In spite of the contrary intention, Patents proved themselves an impediment to the progress of human ingenuity, and by each newly-granted Patent an unrelenting “halt” is shouted to the competition in that direction.

On closer reflection, even persons who move in circles which, from personal interest, have hitherto used their influence to give the greatest possible stability to Patent-rights, will come to the conviction that the disadvantages outweigh by far the advantages.

The Patent system, viewed from a standpoint of political economy, produces a similar influence as the Lottery. The “grand prize” dazzles all; however, only one can have it, and the multitude of those who contributed to the solving of the problem lose very often a not inconsiderable stake in uselessly-incurred costs, and lost time and trouble.

Many have been induced by the system to rush after doubtful reward in the shape of a Patent, instead of steadily applying their ability and knowledge to regular industry.

Besides, it is not sufficient to make up one’s mind to make an invention capable of being patented; such proceedings lead to a success in the most rare cases. The most important discoveries have proceeded, on the contrary, from those who thoughtfully prosecute their regular avocations. The fear that with abolition of Patents the ingenuity of mankind would slacken, we cannot share, because the germ of progress is embodied in human nature, and because the joy over an invention made, and the satisfaction felt at a new discovery, in themselves are powerful impulses for the employment of energies in such directions. A strong proof of the correctness of this assertion the men of science furnish, whom we have to thank for the most important discoveries, in so far as the application of physical and chemical laws to industry are concerned—which have been always handed over immediately to the public with the utmost liberality. Others have based their inventions on such laws, and managed to acquire for this one or that other a Patent, and thus, to their own advantage and to the cost of the public, made an invasion of territory hardly legitimately theirs. They reaped where others had sowed.

Let us take, for instance, all the lighting apparatuses during the last twenty-five years. The different lamp contrivances during this period for which Patents have been granted by the industrial States of Europe will number several hundreds. Now, if we sift the matter, we will find that all these patented combinations are simply variations of a principle which Berzelius established and applied to his spirit-lamp.

Similar is the experience with the invention of Bunsen, who reduced the costs of the electric battery considerably, by applying a hard sort of coke in place of the platinum in Grove’s Battery.

In a still higher degree has Morse acted meritoriously. It is true, Morse, in consideration of the signal importance of his invention, has received a public reward in the shape of money, and this mode of acknowledging real merit in the province of inventions recommends itself for adoption even in individual States.

After the abolition of Patents, apart from such acknowledgments as aforesaid, very soon associations of the various interested parties who, by each discovery, would be equally benefited, will be formed for the purpose of rewarding new inventions made in accordance with indicated problems, the solution of which may be felt to be most important to them.

For State rewards only such inventions should be taken cognizance of as, according to their nature, cannot be kept secret, and are not of a kind that will ensure to the inventor an adequate reward by his own use of them.

Principles, which hitherto have not been admissible for Patents, would be likewise excluded from rewards. There could be also no premiums for new modes of manufacture, such as simpler or cheaper manufacture of materials already known, and in the same manner manufacture of new articles directly going into consumption, because, in the first case, the secret use of the invention would present an equivalent, while in the latter cases the start which the inventor has with regard to manufacturing, as well as disposal, before and over his competitors, in most cases is more than sufficient reward for the merit of having given mankind new means of satisfying human enjoyments and necessities. It was consequently a timely Convention between the States of the Zollverein, which already, under date of 21st September, 1842, acknowledged the principle that the granting of a Patent henceforth could establish no right to prohibit either the import or the sale, nor the use of articles agreeing with those patented, as far as articles of consumption are concerned, and that a right of that nature was only applicable to machinery and tools for manufacturers and artisans.[10] Accordingly, the granting of rewards would have to be restricted to inventors of useful machinery and tools, who do not use them solely in their own interest and keep their construction a secret, but, on the contrary, make them accessible to everybody by multiplication.

With such regulations as to Patent-right in force in Germany, it will be observed that here, as in other countries, the great disadvantage arises from this, that by the patenting of an invention its utilisation or trial is prohibited to home industry, while the foreigner is quite at liberty to make use of it and to bring the articles in question to market in the country where the Patent exists.

In this manner foreign industry is actually enjoying a preference, to the detriment of the industry of that country in which the Patent is granted; consequently even the patentee, through such foreign competition, loses the intended reward partially. The example furnished by the Patent on the manufacture of aniline colours in France illustrates the case. On the whole, it is not to be denied that those advantages which the Patent monopoly should guarantee are often not in harmony either with the value or the importance of the patented invention; just as often these advantages do not reach the author of the invention at all, but flow into the pockets of such people as make it a business either to purchase Patent-rights, and so work them for their own account, or in partnership with the patentee, taking care to secure for themselves the lion’s share. It is further proved by experience that insignificant and most simple inventions have often brought extraordinary advantages to the patentee, while the discoverers of important novelties (we instance only Reissel, who introduced the screw as a motor in navigation), in spite of Patent-rights, could not find gratitude nor reward for what they accomplished.

We arrive, consequently, at the conclusion, that the partly imaginary advantages of Patents are outweighed by the disadvantages attached, and that, as the industrial condition of Switzerland exemplifies, no further use of such means is any longer required in helping to elevate industry in all its branches to a very high standard, or to keep pace with the development of other countries in that direction.

[10] I cannot but think the patenting of machinery a great disadvantage to any community. Yet if importing were allowed in spite of the Patent, the exaction of heavy royalties, and of royalties graduated according to work performed (which is the greatest source of evil), would be impossible, and the disadvantage be neutralised.—R. A. M.

EXTRACTS FROM M. VERMEIRE.

After most of this _fasciculus_ is in type, I am favoured with a copy of M. Vermeire’s “Le Libre Travail,” Brussels, 1864, from which I subjoin three extracts.

The first, a noble passage quoted by that gentleman from M. Bastiat’s “Harmonies Economiques:”—

“C’est la concurrence qui fait tomber dans le domains commun
toutes les conquêtes dont le génie de chaque siècle accroît le
trésor des générations qui le suivent. Tant qu’elle n’est pas
intervenue, tant que celui qui a utilisé un agent naturel est
maître de son secret, son agent naturel est gratuit sans doute,
mais il n’est pas encore commun; la conquête est réalisée, mais
elle l’est au profit d’un seul homme ou d’une seule classe.
Elle n’est pas encore un bienfait pour l’humanité entière.
Si les choses devaient rester ainsi avec toute invention, un
principe d’inégalité indéfinie s’introduirait dans le monde;
mais il n’en est pas ainsi, Dieu, qui a prodigué a toutes ses
créatures la chaleur, la lumière, la gravitation, l’air, l’eau,
la terre, les merveilles de la vie végétale, l’électricité et
tant d’autres bienfaits innombrables, Dieu, qui a mis dans
l’individualité _l’intérêt personnel_ qui, comme un aimant,
attire toujours tout à lui, Dieu, dis-je, a placé aussi au sein
de l’ordre social un autre ressort anquel il a confié le soin
de conserver à ses bienfaits leur destination primitive, la
gratuité, la communauté. Ce ressort, c’est la concurrence.

“Ainsi l’intérêt personnel est cette indomptable force
individualiste qui nous fait chercher le progrès qui nous le
fait découvrir, qui nous y pousse l’aiguillon dans le flanc,
mais qui nous porte aussi a le monopoliser. La concurrence
est cette force humanitaire non moins indomptable qui
arrache le progrès, à mesure qu’il le réalise, des mains de
l’individualité, pour en faire l’héritage commun de la grande
famille humaine. Ces deux forces qu’on peut critiquer, quand on
les considère isolément, constituent dans leur ensemble, par le
jeu de leurs combinaisons, l’harmonie sociale.

“Et, pour le dire en passant, il n’est pas surprenant que
l’individualité, représentée par l’intérêt de l’homme en
tant que producteur, s’insurge depuis le commencement du
monde contre la concurrence, qu’elle la réprouve, qu’elle
cherche à la détruire, appelant à son aide la force, la ruse,
le privilége, le sophisme, la restriction, la protection
gouvernementale, le monopole.”

The second, portion of an interesting letter by M. Paillottet, éditeur-commentateur of Bastiat’s works, (written in May, 1863):—

“Cette connaissance, résultat de son travail, est pour toujours
à lui; nul ne peut la lui enlever ni ne doit l’empêcher de s’en
servir.

“Seulement, comme la nature permet à d’autres hommes de se
livrer à la même recherche, qu’elle les y excite et souvent
même leur en fait une nécessité, le jour doit arriver où la
notion que cet homme possédait seul est aussi possédée par
d’autres. Ce jour-là, je dis que le premier inventeur n’a plus
seul le droit de se servir d’une notion qu’il n’est plus seul
à posséder. Prétendez-vous que je le dépouille du résultat de
son travail? J’ai à vous répondre: Si je dépouille le premier,
vous, vous dépouillez le second, le troisième, le centième
inventeur peut-être; si je dépouille le Chinois, vous, vous
dépouillez Guttemberg!

“Un mot maintenant sur le droit à la réciprocité de services.

“Je crois fermement, avec Bastiat, que ‘la véritable et
équitable loi des hommes, c’est: Echange _librement débattu_ de
service contre service.’

“Si un inventeur me rend service, je lui dois un service
équivalent; Dieu me garde d’en disconvenir. Mas de même que je
n’exige pas de l’inventeur ses services et ne l’oblige pas à
en recevoir de moi, j’entends qu’il n’exige pas les miens et
ne m’impose pas les siens. Entre lui et moi, l’échange doit
être précédé d’un libre débat amenant le consentement des
deux parties. M. Le Hardy de Beaulieu oublie ou supprime la
nécessité du libre débat.”

The third, a narrative by my able and ardent Belgian fellow-labourer in this great cause, the Abolition of Patents, M. Vermeire himself, to whose work I refer readers. He will allow me to say I impute it to no deficiency in courtesy on his part that it escaped earlier and due notice. He there gives the Chambers of Commerce of this kingdom credit for opinions which they have not generally embraced up to this hour:—

“M. Eugène Flachat attaque la loi des brevets comme une _lépre
industrielle_. M. Arthur Legrand ne critique pas moins vivement
cette législation surannée ainsi que M. Michel Chevalier,
que l’on peut considérer, à juste titre, comme le chef des
économistes français.

“Quand l’opinion de ces hommes érudits me fut connue je
n’hésitai plus et je publiai l’exposé de ma doctrine du _Libre
travail_ dans l’_Economiste Belge_ du 28 Mars, 1863.—Plus tard
M. Macfie, president de la Chambre de Commerce de Liverpool,
fit connaître ses idées sur la matière et le congrès des
économistes allemands réuni à Dresde en Septembre, 1863, émit
la résolution suivante qui fut adoptée à une forte majorité:

“‘Considérant que les brevets d’invention n’encouragent pas
les progrès des inventions et mettent plutôt obstacle à la
réalisation de celles-ci.

“‘Considérant, que les brevets d’invention entravent plutôt
qu’ils ne favorisent la prompte exploitation des inventions
utiles et qu’ils ne sont pas un mode convenable de récompense.

“‘Le congrès a résolu que les brevets d’invention sont
nuisibles au développement de la prospérité publique.’

“Cet avis des hommes de la science a été écouté en Allemagne
par les hommes de la pratique; car sur les 47 Chambres de
Commerce que renferme la Prusse, 31 viennent de se prononcer
pour l’abolition des brevets d’invention d’après ce que je
viens de lire dans les journaux, au moment même où j’écris ces
lignes.—

“_Le libre travail_ qui fut suivi, de mon _Examen critique de
la garantie légale des modèles et dessins de fabrique_ provoqua
une ardente discussion,” &c.

MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY, BELGIUM, AND HOLLAND.

A Belgian _projet de loi_ in favour of copyright of models and designs in manufacture, having been defeated, in consequence, as is alleged, of M. Vermeire’s efforts through the press and otherwise, we are told—

“This fact demonstrates once more that in Belgium, as
everywhere else, opinions in favour of intellectual property
within the domain of industry are declining, and that so far
from legislation tending in the direction of giving such
property increased proportions, it will soon be proposed
to demolish entirely the superannuated legislation which
interposes so many and so serious obstacles to the progress of
industrial operations.

“The tactics of the partisans of such property consist in
identifying or assimilating it with material property. This
similarity permits the conclusions and deductions to be drawn
which form the basis of Patent legislation.

“The pretended identity or similarity has been completely
overthrown by M. Vermeire in his ‘Le Libre Travail.’ His
‘Examen Critique de la Garantie Légale des Modèles et Dessins
de Fabrique’ deals a fresh blow against the confounding of
property in a thing and property in an idea.”

EXTRACT OF LETTER, BRUSSELS, JUNE 11, 1869.

There is in Belgium, as in England and all other countries, a feeling antagonistic to Patent-rights. It is even shared in by many eminent political economists. I think, however, I may venture to assert that in this country the Government, far from participating in this feeling, would rather be inclined, in the event of a revision of the Patent-Laws, to secure in a more effectual way the rights of inventors.

GERMANY.

EXTRACT FROM LETTER OF AN EMINENT HOUSE IN COLOGNE.

Although we think it rather difficult to form a general opinion on this matter, we still believe that most Industrials would welcome abolition of Patents for Inventions. The Cologne Chamber of Commerce expressed, in September, 1863, its opinion in the same sense. German legislation regarding Patents will probably be reformed. A proposition made in this direction by Count Bismarck to the Bundesrath, contained in the “Annalen des Norddeutschen Bundes,” by Dr. George Hirth, 1ster Heft Jahrgang, 1869, page 34, 42, II., would interest you much, as it coincides, we believe, with your motion. The latest publications in German literature on the subject are Klostermann “Die Patents Gesetzgebung aller Lander,” Berlin, 1869; Barthel “Die Patent-frage,” Leipzig, 1869.

EXTRACT FROM “DIE PATENTS GESETZGEBUNG ALLER LANDER,” BY DR. R. KLOSTERMANN (BERLIN, 1869).

A short time since, in the course of the present decade, the public has spoken out, following numerous and important persons who wished the entire abolition of Patents for inventions, because they allege that the existence of such is incompatible with the free-trade movements. They said that such impede industry instead of advancing it; that the claim of the first inventor to a monopoly is untenable; that discovery is not the work of one man, but the ripe fruit of industrial development.

From the difficulty and complexity of the subject, men would do away with Patent-Laws; but the real cause of the agitation against them lies in the enormous development which our international commerce has undergone in the last ten years through free-trade, steam-boats, and railways.

As the complete abolition of the “customs-limits,” with the German Zollverein [customs-union], was not made without a direct transformation of the Patent-Laws and a positive limitation of Patent protection, so is—through the concluding of the treaties of commerce made during the last ten years between the Zollverein and France, Great Britain, Belgium, and Italy—a _total reform_ in the Patent-Law rendered necessary.

All countries, with _the single exception of Switzerland_, recognise by their existing laws the necessity of _Patent protection_; and this case of Switzerland is particularly brought forward by those opposed to the Patent movement. The Commission which was appointed of Swiss experts (and which said that Patent protection is unnecessary and tends to nothing good) was impartial enough to avow that the particular advantages which Switzerland draws from existing circumstances arise from the fact that in all the adjoining countries the protection of Patents does exist, but in Switzerland alone not so. Swiss industry, which is exceedingly small, is placed in the position of imitating all foreign Patents which find a market in Switzerland, and getting the benefit of the discoveries made under the protection of foreign Patents. Switzerland is just in the position of a man who keeps no cats because he can use his neighbours’.

HOLLAND.

I have before me a series of valuable illustrative documents printed by the Government of the Netherlands, which are too long to introduce here. The movement for abolishing Patents in that country, already referred to on pages 196-230, was consummated by a striking majority, in the First Chamber, of no less than 29 to 1; the abolition to take effect from 1st January next, existing rights, of course, to be respected.

ON PERPETUITY OF PATENT-RIGHT.

The following observations, abridged from a review, by M. Aug. Boudron, of M. le Hardy de Beaulieu’s _La Propriété et sa Rente_, are from the _Journal des Economistes_ for May:—

The author assimilates the inventor’s privileges to proprietorship of a field. Nevertheless there is a fundamental difference between the two kinds of property. Independently of State privileges, the originator of a discovery may use it as his own, and even to the exclusion of all others, provided he keep it secret, so that he shall have no competitor to encounter; whereas the owner of a field, if he is deprived of his right, loses all. The advantages of an invention may be enjoyed simultaneously by many persons; the produce of a field by one only. Now for a difference of importance affecting the interests of the public. Give the possessor of a field his right in perpetuity, and you have circumstances the most favourable for its yielding all the produce which it can. Not so with the privilege of an inventor, for it essentially consists in hindering others from bringing the methods or materials that are patented into use. From the time of invention and first _exploitation_ the privilege is an obstacle; it limits the amount of good that society would in its absence enjoy. What, then, is the motive of certain States in conceding this exclusive privilege?... The legislators who have created the right thought that there would in consequence be a larger number of useful inventions and improvements, and that, on the whole, society would be a greater gainer than if there were no Patents.... As there are innumerable instruments and processes for which Patents have been and might still be taken, there must, if perpetuity of privilege be granted, be a prodigious number of monopolies, and almost no operation could be performed, nothing done, without people being obliged to pay tribute to some privileged person. There would be a countless host of administrators like receivers of tolls and pontages, diminishing wealth in place of creating it; the world would soon produce too little to sustain the monopolists and their _employés_. We thus arrive at an impossibility. But conceive all this possible, and the world must yet miss a great number of inventions and improvements, that would under the system of perpetuity be prevented. This is seen by the obstacles which even privileges of limited duration throw in the way of new inventions. In actual practice progress is often attained only by the use of previous inventions. But what if these are the subject of Patents the holder of which will not come to terms or cannot be treated with? Retardation, if the privilege is temporary; a full stop, if perpetual.

NOTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF MR. MACFIE’S SPEECH.

[Page 17.]

The views taken in the text as to the meaning of the word “manufacture” receive confirmation from the following extract from the _Engineer_ of June 4, 1869:—

THE AMERICAN PATENT-LAW.

... Accordingly, in the first general Patent-Law passed by Congress, the subject for which Patents were to be granted were described as the invention or discovery of “any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement therein not before known or used.” In the next statute—that of 21st February, 1793—the phraseology was first introduced which has been ever since employed—namely, “any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement in any art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, not known or used before the application for a Patent.”... We have, then, the following four heads of subjects suitable for Patents—viz., an art, a machine, a manufacture, and a composition of matter.... In England, to make a new process the subject of a Patent, the word “manufacture” would be used, and would have to be interpreted somewhat liberally. Thus, in some cases, there might not be a perfect distinction between the thing itself and the art or process of making the thing.... With regard to the head “manufacture,” we cannot do better than give the definition which Mr. Curtis has added as a note to his work. He says a manufacture “would be any new combination of old materials, constituting a new result or production in the form of a vendible article, not being machinery.”...

As well as from the following extract from—

HINDMARCH ON “VENDING OR SELLING.”

“The sole privilege of making the invention as expressed ... is in truth the same in substance as the sole privilege of using and exercising it.... By the first section of the Statute of Monopolies, patents granting ‘the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using of anything’ are declared to be void, and the proviso in favour of inventions contained in the sixth section only extends to ‘grants of privilege of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures,’ leaving the sole buying or selling of anything within the prohibition.... The sole privilege granted by a _Patent_ for an invention authorises the inventor ‘to make, use, exercise, and vend’ the invention.... And as no one can use the invention except the patentee, no one besides him can lawfully have such articles for sale.... Every part of the privilege granted by a _Patent_ for an invention, when thus explained (!) is therefore clearly within the meaning of the exception contained in the _Statute_....”

I demur. Is there anything in the _Statute_ to prevent a person _importing_ articles and _vending_ them though the same as the privileged person is alone allowed to _make_ or _work_? In point of fact that surely might, when the statute was passed, be done from Scotland and Ireland as to manufactures not patented in these countries, but patented in England.

[Page 18.]

The number of Patents granted in the first fifty years after the Statute of Monopolies was seventy-two, or at the rate of less than one and a-half per annum.

[Page 19.]

The following list of applications for Patents up to the end of 1862, in several classes, is abridged from Mr. Edwards’ interesting treatise on, or rather against, “Letters Patent for Inventions:”—

Oct., 1852, to Before
Dec. 31, 1862. Oct., 1852. Total.

Railways and Railway Carriages 1,418 630 2,018
Telegraphs 558 109 667
Steam and Steam Boilers 1,293 377 1,670
Steam-engines 1,228 704 1,932
Spinning 1,837 1,120 2,957
Electricity, Galvanism, and Electroplating 662 38 700
Sewing and Embroidery 352 40 392
Heating and Evaporating 1,108 373 1,481
Fireplaces, Grates 317 169 481
Flues and Chimneys 278 75 353
Fuel 227 129 356
Ventilating Buildings, Carriages, Ships, &c. 392 81 473

SUGGESTIVE EXTRACTS FROM DR. PERCY’S WORKS ON METALLURGY.

[Page 34.]

THE COPPER TRADE.

It would be sheer waste of time even to notice many of the mis-called improvements in copper—something for which Patents have been granted in this country during the last twenty years. Some of the patentees display such deplorable ignorance of the first principles of chemistry, and such utter want of practical knowledge, as would seem hardly possible with the present facilities of acquiring information.

Various Patents have been granted for alleged improvements in the treating of copper ores, of certain products obtained in the smelting of copper ores, &c., which are only worthy of notice as affording, as I conceive, satisfactory illustrations of the defective state of our existing Patent-Laws.... That a man who has worked out an original and valuable process from his own brain, and who may have incurred great expenses in bringing it to a practical issue—it may be, after years of protracted toil and anxiety—should have secured to him by law during a moderate term the exclusive privilege of reaping the substantial reward of his own invention, appears to me as just and reasonable as that an author should be protected against piratical and unprincipled publishers. But that the law should confer upon a man the exclusive right of appropriating to his own benefit facts which are perfectly familiar to every tyro in chemistry, and of practising operations which are of daily occurrence in the laboratories of chemists, is as impolitic as it is unjust. And surely, the particular “inventions” above referred to belong to this category. I cordially subscribe to the opinion expressed by Mr. Grove, Q.C.—namely, that the real object of Patent-Law was to reward not trivial inventions, which stop the way to greater improvements, but substantial boons to the public; not changes such as any experimentalist makes a score a day in his laboratory, but substantial, practical discoveries, developed into an available form.

THE HOT BLAST.

It cannot strictly be termed a great invention, for what great exercise of the inventive faculty could it possibly have required for its development? There was no elaborate working out of a process or machine, as has been the case in many inventions, but the thing was done at once. Without wishing in the smallest degree to detract from the merit to which Mr. Neilson is justly entitled, I may nevertheless express my opinion that the hot-blast was a lucky hit rather than an invention, properly so-called. Whatever opinion may be entertained as to the expediency of Patents, there can be no doubt that such a Patent as this ought never to have been granted. A Patent, even though it may be proved invalid, confers upon its possessor a _locus standi_ in the eye of the law, and enables him thereby to involve innocent persons in most expensive litigation, to say nothing of the attendant annoyance and anxiety. The preliminary examination before the Attorney or Solicitor-General is in many cases an absolute farce, and nothing less. The present system, although confessedly an improvement on the old one, is yet in many cases highly obstructive and injurious to national interests.

[Page 50.]

The following passage from the _Engineer_ of May 28, proves clearly that the Bessemer Patents do raise prices of iron:—

The present royalty on rails is 2_l._ per ton; on each ton a drawback of 1_l._ is nominally allowed, but the nature of Mr. Bessemer’s arrangements with regard to scrap, crop ends, waste, &c., is such that the true royalty on every ton of Bessemer rails delivered to a railway company—in other words, sold—amounts to about 1_l._ 5s. 6d. After the lapse of Mr. Bessemer’s Patents in February, 1870, this sum, all but 2s. 6d. per ton royalty on plant, will be saved; and, therefore, in March next year, rails may be bought for at least 1_l._ 3s. per ton less than they cost now.

WORKING MEN AS INVENTORS.

[Page 62.]

Somewhat to my surprise, I am led to apprehend that the interest of working men will be represented as coinciding with retention of invention monopoly. I hope they are too wide awake to believe such a fallacy, and too upright to approve of the continuance of a proved national disadvantage, even though it were not a fallacy. If Patents are injurious to the community by raising prices of articles of consumption and utility, then the operative and labouring classes, inasmuch as they constitute the bulk of the population, must be the chief sufferers. If Patents interfere with labour in any direction, and tend to drive trade away from our island, they, as the mainstays of industry, must be the chief sufferers. The only pretence for such an allegation as I am combating is this: some inventions in all trades, many inventions in some trades, are made by artisans, who therefore will lose this form of reward. True enough; but is the reward to these few individuals a compensation for the evils inflicted on the many—the millions? and is not the reward often so like the gift of a white elephant, or the catching of a Tartar—so much of a delusion, a difficulty, a disadvantage, a snare, a ruin—that their wisest counsellors would warn against its fascination, especially if through their own favour for my propositions there is the choice of fair and satisfactory alternative recompenses? The position of working men in respect to Patents is frequently dealt with in this compilation; their attention and co-operation I respectfully invite.

THE INVENTORS’ INSTITUTE.

An Inventors’ Institute has been formed for the purpose of maintaining the Patent System, and amending it in such a way as, I fear and am sure, will only make its yoke more galling and its burden heavier. The public will do well to remember that, in spite of the name, this is rather a society of patentees, including in its membership a portion only of those inventors who take Patents, and not including the innumerable inventors who do not take Patents, and who suffer by the system which the Institute is intended to perpetuate, extend, and knit more tightly on us all and in the first place on them. The honoured names who direct that society will do well to consider who are inventors and what are inventions. If they would but reflect that we are almost to a man inventors in the sense in which the great mass of patentees are such, and that the majority of inventions which choke the Patent-office are such as themselves, at any rate, would disdain to claim and scorn to annoy their fellows by patenting, they would probably arrive at the conviction—which is half-way on the road to complete emancipation of trade from the fetters they hug—that the system is so practically bad that rectification is hopeless, and would join in endeavours, not to amend what is, even theoretically, defective and bad, but to devise and introduce a thoroughly good substitute. I hope the present publication will not be in vain, when it endeavours to remove well-meaning prepossessions by force of truth.

JUSTIFICATION OF STATE REWARDS.

[Page 81.]

It is just and expedient that the public exchequer should pay inventors, because—1. The State is entitled, or required, to undertake all beneficent and useful works which, while they ought to be done for or by the nation, yet cannot be so well, or at all, done by individuals. 2. Though individuals, more than the nation collectively, will reap the benefit of these payments, it is manifest that the range of inventive improvement is so wide that on the average of years every portion of the community, and every individual in all portions, will share the benefit pretty equally. 3. The demand for remunerating inventors proceeds from the State, not manufacturers or producers. 4. These last cannot, under the _régime_ of free trade, pass over from their own shoulders upon those of consumers—who are the real, because ultimate, recipients of the benefit—the burden of royalties, or other payments to inventors. 5. The charge of £200,000 per annum is, after all, on a population of thirty-two millions but a poll-tax of _three halfpence per head_. On how easy terms would we obtain for the nation a universal, prompt enjoyment of every novelty, and complete emancipation of our commerce and manufactures from an incubus and thraldom which are every day becoming more depressing!

THE PATENT-OFFICE ESTABLISHMENT.

[Page 86.]

The Patent-office in Southampton-buildings, Chancery-lane, is an establishment highly creditable to its organisers, but far too little known. Its free consulting library should be more frequented. The publications there sold at a cheap rate, and presented gratuitously to public institutions which undertake to keep them for reference under fitting regulations, are invaluable. The indexes, manuscript and printed, there kept, are elaborate, and include lists of scientific and practical matter affecting commerce and the arts, culled from periodicals issued in all countries. No change in our manner of dealing with inventions can deprive us of, or supersede the use of, such an accessible storehouse of useful knowledge. The wonder is, that its advantages are not more extensively availed of, and that so few even of our great towns have applied for sets of its specifications and indexes. There is, in spite of the establishment’s excellence, room for improvement in several respects, one of which is in the providing better means for connecting itself with the mass of the people in the provinces.

“THE NEW CANADIAN PATENT-LAW.—The Patent Bill which has been for some time before the Parliament of the Dominion, has passed. The hope, to which we alluded a few weeks ago, that the Bill might be modified to enable Americans to obtain Patents in Canada, has not been fulfilled; and the only effect of the Bill, so far as we are interested, is to shut out American inventors from a larger amount of territory than before.”—_Extract from “American Artisan,” June 20, 1869._

NOTES AND EXTRACTS ON ROYALTY IN COPYRIGHT, WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATIONS AFFECTING NORTH AMERICA.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

The present opportunity is availed of to recommend to notice the royalty form of International Copyright as one which might probably be acceptable to the people of the United States. I apprehend there is little or no prospect of their agreeing to negotiate on the basis of the monopoly form of Copyright which is now established in both countries. This has often, but never successfully, been urged on the United States. The advantages to British authors and publishers of so large an extension of area are obvious. There are now in that country near forty millions of people much more able to read and to buy than our thirty millions. It is in the interests of British authors, publishers, and traders, most desirable to get so large an addition to the number of the readers and buyers of English literature. Every year the benefit will be greater, but perhaps less easily attainable. The conscience and generous impulses of the great American nation will naturally incline them to negotiate on a principle which (as I hope they will consider that of royalties does) at once fairly meets the reasonable claims of authors and the equally reasonable claims, or rights, of the public. Authors and the trade would soon become familiar with, and reconciled to, the change in the form of their remuneration. They cannot but admit and feel that it is the duty of statesmen, when constituting Copyright, to take care that its effect is on the whole beneficial—as beneficial as is consistent with fair treatment of authors—to the whole body of the people for whose sake they govern. If I am warranted in anticipating that, whereas now under monopoly a new book of intrinsic value is seldom or almost never possessed by, or even seen in the houses of, the labouring population, there would under royalties be a tendency to cheapness which might be confidently relied on as the means of bringing such works within reach of the masses—not when they are stale, but when they are fresh—can I doubt that the concurrence both of authors and legislators is a matter of hope approaching to certainty? When staleness is suggested as a deterrent from, and freshness as a pleasant stimulus to, the reading of books, this is no more than the practical recognition of a taste universal among men and women, whether it concerns food material or food intellectual. Let us work it for the good of our race. But it is a quality and power unattainable except either by royalties or else by the Chinese system of open literature. That the present system works unsatisfactorily, even in a mere trade point of view, I am convinced, and for confirmation refer to figures I append from a Return on the Book Trade lately laid before the House of Commons. The sale of books at home and the export of books to the colonies and foreign parts, admit of vast expansion. We should legislate so as to accomplish, in regard to books, at the least such an expansion as has been attained in regard to newspapers. While the present form of Copyright remains in force, it would be vain to expect that the existing hindrances will be overcome. Publishers, therefore, may well co-operate. But I appeal with equal directness to philanthropists, especially all those who have the power of representing to their fellows what a folly and mistake it is to write books with a view to the moral, social, and religious welfare of men, and yet to rest satisfied with a system of law and trade that find the recompenses of authorship and of publishing ventures in a limited sale of dear books instead of an extensive sale of cheap ones—of a few good books at a large profit instead of many good books at a small! I could adduce from my own transactions conclusive proofs of the bad working and obstructive operation of monopoly in Copyright. Ireland, in particular, may well exclaim against it; for before the Union the publishers of Dublin used to drive a useful business in reprinting British works which they have, under the present system, been deprived of, to their own loss and the incalculable disadvantage of their countrymen.

The Chinese, it is said, do not recognise Copyright. What the effect is on their literature I know not. But their post-office and custom-house officers should, at any rate, rejoice that, unlike the establishments in enlightened Britain, they are not employed in the interests of private individuals as detectives of contraband literature.

I submit with some confidence a scheme I have sketched. It is one which I hope will at least prepare the way for this important national and international question receiving the earnest attention it merits.

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE AMENDMENT OF THE SYSTEM OF COPYRIGHT FOR BOOKS, BY MR. MACFIE.

(From the _Leith Herald_ of — Jan.)

1. The period of exclusive privileges to continue as at
present, unless any publisher demand that it shall be
shortened, which he may do any time after the end of the first
year, provided he intimates to the author or assignee of the
author, or their agent, at the Stationers’ Hall, or other place
duly appointed, that he intends to publish an edition at a
lower price within a year, and also lodges there a specimen
copy and a statement of the intended price.

2. On such new edition the intended publisher shall be liable
to pay in advance [five] per cent. on the retail price of the
book.

3. And there shall be impressed on the first sheet of each copy
a distinctive stamp approved by the Stationers’ Hall, without
which it shall be a penal offence to print or vend any copy.

4. Every publisher making such an intimation shall be bound to
actually publish, according to his notice, unless the author or
his assignee, within six months of his receiving intimation,
shall lodge at the Stationers’ Hall a bond obliging himself
to publish on his own account, an edition at least as good in
quality, at a price no higher; such bond to bar any action
under the provisions of Article 1.

5. No reprint to differ from the original edition, without
the author’s consent, either in the way of abbreviation,
enlargement, or alteration of the text.

6. If a book is out of print for a whole year, the copyright
privilege to lapse.

7. By special arrangements a longer period of exclusive
privilege shall be allowed for Encyclopædias, works _de luxe_,
&c. [Engravings, photographic illustrations, &c., not to be
subject to the condition now proposed in this paper.]

8. Government to endeavour to negotiate international copyright
treaties on the principle exhibited in the foregoing, with
the United States and other foreign countries, in order to,
first—the increase of the area of remuneration to authors;
and, second, the removal of all unnecessary obstruction to the
exchange of literary productions.

9. On the completion of the above treaty or treaties, all
examination and stopping of books by the Custom-house and
Post-office to cease.

10. Government to endeavour to persuade foreign Governments to
exempt printed matter from duty, or else to charge duty at a
moderate rate by weight, and not _ad valorem_.

The British colonies to enter into the Copyright “Verein” which
would be so constituted, but without any import or export duty,
except in so far as proximity to the United States may render
modification in Canada desirable.

In the event of such international arrangements being
negotiated, the author or assignee of any copyright work to
have an agent in the capital of each of the united countries,
who shall be empowered to receive and give the notices,
intimations, and bonds provided for in Articles 1 and 4.

I am satisfied that the system of royalties could be carried out in practice without difficulty. Each author would have a special stamp—call it, if you will, trademark—the use of which, required as a condition of circulation, he would authorise under such superintendence as he may think fit. No copy should be legally saleable without the stamp, just as in France no pamphlet can be sold without the Government stamp.

Strong confirmation of the applicability of the royalty principle to literature reaches me after the preceding is in type, which I subjoin; No. I. being extracts from articles published in 1837 and 1839, by Thomas Watts, Esq., Keeper of the Printed Books of the British Museum; and No. II., a chapter from “Traité des Droits d’Auteurs,” by M. Renouard, Paris, 1838.

I.

(Extract from the _Mechanics’ Magazine_, Vol. 27, 1837.)

This is the last of the new provisions mentioned in the preface, and the only one in the whole bill that seems intended for the benefit of the public. We were in hopes of finding at least one other, to provide for some method of “taxing” the price of new works, as used formerly to be done in foreign countries when a Copyright was granted. A limit is proposed to be fixed to the profits of railway companies; why are authors and publishers to be allowed to demand what sums they please? When they find they have a giant’s strength, they are too apt to use it like a giant. There is such a thing, not only in theory, but in practice, as laying too heavy a tax on an author’s admirers. In the height of Walter Scott’s popularity there was no other way of obtaining an early copy of a new poem than by purchasing it in the inconvenient form of a ponderous quarto; it generally, a few months afterwards, appeared in an octavo shape; but in one instance, Sir Walter, finding it desirable to force the sale of an unsaleable periodical with which he was connected, “The Edinburgh Annual Register,” inserted one of his poems in one of the yearly volumes, and drove all such of his adversaries as had not bought the quarto to buy a cartload of old news, along with the vision of Don Roderick. Is all this justified by the comprehensive maxim that a man may do what he likes with his own? Since the Copyright of Sir Walter’s poems has drawn near the term of extinction, his publishers have thought fit to issue them in editions not only so cheap that they suit the pocket, but so small that they may be put into it. His novels are Copyright still, and the consequence is, that they are still not only dear, but ill got up. What a torrent of Elzevir editions of “Waverley” there would be if it were now public property! At present there is not one edition of it in one volume, the most usual and convenient form for a standard novel—not one edition in Elzevir, the most usual and convenient size. And this is to remain so for the next sixty years!

Sergeant Talfourd might provide a remedy for these evils in the literary tribunal which, though he makes no proposal for it in the present Bill, he is anxious to see established, for the decision of literary cases (and his arguments for which, by the bye, would answer equally well in regard to every other profession). It would provide itself, if a project were adopted for a Copyright-Law, of which we shall now proceed to state the outlines, but without the forlornest hope of ever seeing it tried.

Let an author be empowered to sell the Copyright of his work to a particular publisher for the space of five years only—a term at the end of which nine-tenths of the works now published are completely forgotten. Let it then become public property, in the same way that a play, on being published, becomes public property, since Mr. Bulwer’s Act. As a manager now has the right to act any play he chooses, on paying a certain sum to the author for each night of representation, so let any printer have the right to print any work on paying a certain sum to the author for each copy he issues. The main, perhaps the only, objection to the plan would be the necessity of establishing some Excise regulations, with regard to printing-offices, for the prevention of fraud.

The great recommendation, of course, would be, that of every work of reputation we should have cheap and elegant editions; that such of them as required comment and illustration (and now, when the Copyrights expire, it is speedily found that very few of them do not) would receive it at an earlier period, and that the works of living authors would be much more extensively diffused than they are, while their interest would, it is hoped, be advanced in an equal proportion to their fame.

After all, however, we are afraid that no Copyright Act, however favourable to authors, will exercise a perceptible beneficial influence on literature. Our own at present is frivolous, and it is assigned as a cause that our authors are ill-protected. If this be really the cause, in what sort of a state ought that of Germany to be? It is, however, in the very country where piracy is most prevalent that solid literature is most flourishing. Unhappily, no Act of Parliament can reform the taste of the public.

(Extract from the _Mechanics’ Magazine_, Vol. 29, 1839.)