been surmounted, often at a great cost, before the manufacture became successful. If this information were concealed, a hundred manufacturers might spend capital in trial and errors in order to attain the requisite experience, while, in the case of a patent, it suffices that one man should do this for the public, and charge other manufacturers a small royalty for giving to them the experiences of his successful venture. The question, then, for the State to consider, is whether it is best to let the capital of the hundred men be spent, or to impose upon them a small tax to recoup the one man who has succeeded. Experience has decided in the affirmative, and has changed the theoretical objections against patent right to an admission that the price of commodities may be actually lessened by the purchase of experience through the imposition of a tax in the shape of royalties. A second reason on the ground of expediency is important. It is the interest of the patentee to push his invention and force improvements in manufacture. A manufacturer who has invested capital in existing machinery is willing to let production rest upon his existing appliances, but generally does not push new improvements, unless he has the spur of competition. The patentee is the man who drives the spur home into the flanks of manufacture. It is his interest to introduce novelties and to force improvements. Generally, indeed, substantial improvements come from the outside and not from the inside. It is the same in manufactures as in political reforms. The cry for the extension of the suffrage did not arise among the working classes, but from those above who recognised an injustice. So the introduction of improvements into productive industry is generally due to intelligent outsiders who are not bound to run in beaten tracks. Watt, who effected such vast improvements in the steam-engine, was a maker of mathematical instruments; Arkwright, the inventor of the water twist,' was a barber; Neilson, who introduced the hot blast into iron furnaces, was the manager of gas works; Cartwright, the inventor of the power loom, was a parson; Wheatstone, the great inventor in telegraphs, was a musical instrument maker; Young, who has founded the largest chemical industry of modern times, was a carpenter. These examples might be multiplied indefinitely; but they all show that an independent mind is favourable to invention, and is often necessary to put aside the routine of existing processes. Railways, for instance, would rarely reconstruct their signals or apply new and efficient brakes of their own motion. They require to be stimulated to change by inventors. In like manner Government would never have replaced their old wooden frigates if inventors had not brought out new cannon of great power. Modern changes in naval warfare have been due to competition among inventors for the attack and defence. The personal interest of the inventor 6 is thus a great power to introduce and even to force novelties into existing processes. This benefit on a large scale is absent in countries like Holland and Switzerland which possess no patent laws, and in Prussia where patents are rarely given. The best improvements of manufacture, though open to all, are rarely used, because it is no one's interest to push them, while manufacturers are careless to substitute novelties for their regular methods. Germany has felt this evil to be so serious, that, notwithstanding the famous condemnatory memorandum of Bismarck against patents, she has at this moment a new and liberal patent law before her Chambers. In fact, public opinion in favour of patents has changed not only in England, but among nations generally; and we have arrived at a general conclusion that, whatever logic and reason may decide in the abstract, expediency is too strong in the concrete. For experience has abundantly proved that manufacturers become sluggish without a stimulus applied by inventors. The former are content to go on without change; but there are two bodies who have great interest in promoting it—the public and inventors-and the problem is how to unite them in a common interest. England is the last country that could afford to make any experiment which might diminish the inventive faculty of her industrial population. It is quite true that invention flourished long before protection was extended to it. In ancient Egypt what marvels of inventive industry are stili found in her remains! Engineering, architecture, hydraulics, metallurgy, glass-blowing, pottery, spinning, weaving, dyeing, all flourished among the ancient Egyptians. If invention were not marked among Greeks and Romans, we must recollect that where war is the occupation of the free, and labour is relegated to the mechanical operations of a servile class, invention must become stagnant. Machines do not invent machines; and slaves as mere machines cannot be inventive. But as slavery faded away, and light penetrated the darkness of the Middle Ages, the inventive faculty received a great development. Even two centuries before the patent law of James the First, the art of printing, paper, guns, watches, telescopes, wire-drawing machines, table-forks, knitting needles, horseshoes, and glass mirrors had been invented. If this be so, the question may be asked, what need is there now of a patent law? The answer is obvious, that England has no other source of wealth than the industry of her people. Her land is insufficient to feed half her population, and their means of support must be found in an active development of industry. Improved means of communication by land and sea have reduced the raw materials of manufacture to be the lowest factor of production, and competition among nations is now a competition of intellect and not of local advantages. When the patent law was passed in 1624, Manchester was a hamlet surrounded VOL. I.-No. 2. Y by an undrained moss, and Birmingham was a village on the top of a bleak hill. The machinery which since then has added so largely to production has filled these towns with teeming populations, and they can only be supported by renewed inventions which will retain the superiority of England in the growing active competition of the world. Though previous to the patent laws important inventions, such as those we have mentioned, were made, they are as nothing compared to the triumphs of industry in modern times. There is no leisure now to let invention flow on in a sluggish stream, as it would undoubtedly do whether there were patent laws or not. Prizes in the form of rewards for successful venture must be offered to all who have inventive faculties, in order that there may be a constant effort for improvement and progress. These prizes are the royalties for successful patents, and expediency is their justification. But if expediency be the chief reason for granting monopolies to invention, we have a right to consider with what limitations patents should be given in the public interest. 6 The bill before the House is founded on the necessity of protecting public interests while it accords private monopolies to inventors, and it is well that we should examine its guiding principles. These are that only good and substantial patents should be encouraged, but that bad and frivolous ones should be repressed. The latter are to be sifted out by examiners, and the worthy patents are to be tested by their utility and by an increasing money payment as evidence that there is a practical interest to keep them upon the roll. The bill also compels the inventor to supply the public with the products of his invention, or to grant licenses within a moderate time and at reasonable rates. Patentees object to this condition of use. They contend that there are very few dog in the manger' patents, and that no one has a right to dictate the use of property. For example, a man may cultivate his fields as he likes, and even leave portions of them in fallow, without interference from the State. But patents, as we have shown, are not property in this sense. If they stand in the way of human progress, they are altogether indefensible. It is only by the right of use that the public can receive the benefit which is the justification of the monopoly. On the whole, then, the principles of the bill appear to be fair conditions in the interests of the public, though, by the manner in which they are applied in the bill, poor inventors may be much discouraged, and rich capitalists may chiefly benefit by the new legislation. This is a great merit in the eyes of rich manufacturers. A celebrated inventor said to me a few days ago, 'No patent is worth anything unless 20,000l. have been sunk in its preliminary stages.' The bill now before the House may give us well-tested patents of this description, but it may, on the other hand, unduly restrict invention. I have written enough to show that I do not desire to see the ground cumbered with useless inventions which trip up ordinary wayfarers in the field of industry. But I think that it is no improvement of patent law to contruct a system which has a tendency to repress invention among the poor, and only to stimulate it among the rich. Nevertheless, the bill certainly offers new and important advantages to the inventor, for it lengthens by nine months the period of preliminary protection before the final specification is made; it cheapens patents in the early stages, and it extends proved patents from fourteen to twentyone years. Against these advantages are the disadvantages. First, the bill complicates procedure, and it enforces examination as to subject-matter and novelty by a machinery which must inevitably prove incompetent. Both these blots may be considered together. There are, as we have shown, two interests to protect-the interests of the inventor and of the public. In the case of a good patent these interests are identical, but in a useless patent they are antagonistic. When the public travel along a road, it is useful to have steps cut to shorten a hill or to escape an obstacle; but it is positively pernicious to find the road strewn with lumbering obstacles, which trip up the traveller and cause unnecessary hindrance to his progress. The previous examination of patents for novelty and utility is intended to prevent these hindrances, and has been recommended by a Royal Commission, by a Select Committee, and by the International Congress of Vienna. The weight of authority is therefore strongly in its favour. But examination may be conducted in a spirit hostile to the inventor, as is done in Prussia, or in a spirit of instruction and friendliness, as in America. There are to be six examiners under the new bill; in America there used to be a hundred, and now there are eighty-five! It is quite impossible that six examiners can cover the field of a thorough investigation of 5,000 patents yearly. The results of their examination if hostile, after a reference to the law officers and appeal to the Chancellor, are to be final; and the expense of this procedure, with the certainty that six men cannot bring the knowledge of experts to bear upon inventions, will much discourage the poor class of inventors. According to the bill the examiners are to act in rotation, and the result of this would be that the man versed in clocks might have to decide on a chemical patent, and the refuser of a patent this week might be the passer of a like patent in the following week. The examiners should consist of a sufficient number of experts on each subject, paid for each report, and not of a few men professing universal knowledge, which, in the present state of science, it is impossible for them to possess. If the experts be lawyers they cannot be mechanicians and chemists, and if they be the latter they cannot be good lawyers. A responsible and properly paid Commission of Patents could easily obtain the know Y 2 ledge of experts by an adequate remuneration. The inadequate |