Journal of the Society of Arts : Volume XLIX, No. 2527 [‎702v] (30/36)

JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.
[April 25 , 1901.
442
what had been done before, would be of great benefit,
and the suggestion that patents should be limited to
those of a more valuable character was also worthy of
consideration.
Mr. George B. Ellis said that in America
and Germany persons practising in the Patent-
office were under control, an entirely different
state of affairs to those existing in England, where
there was absolutely *no control, which led to a
great deal of cheating. If a test was to be imposed
on the novelty of the invention, at the same time the
various people practising in the Patent-office should
be controlled.
Prof. Ayrton, F.R.S., said the reader of the paper,
in his proposed improvements, had suggested that un
less a patent had been worked on a commercial scale
before the end of the fourth year it should be void. No
doubt such a recommendation would be of value
if patentees were obstructionists. In his opinion
there was a class of patents which were not utilised
because the world was not ready to take advantage of
them. It would be very hard that although in such a
case a patentee was quite willing to enter into any
arrangement to enable his patent to be utilised
he should lose it. It was even harder still
that he should be called upon to pay, year after
year, an increasing sum to maintain a patent which
returned him absolutely nothing. In such a case it
was worth while considering whether a steadily in
creasing fee was desirable. He had not been able to
discover the advantage of the regulation which said,
“ The acceptance of the complete specification is
advertised, and any person may give notice of oppo
sition, within two months, to the grant of the patent
on certain very limited grounds.” What was the
advantage of objecting to anybody’s patent ? He
was told that the granting of the patent gave no
particular advantage, and by objecting one was
placed at a disadvantage because one had
to bear the expenses. No advantage was gained if
one won, and the granting of a patent could not be
objected to unless the objector was in possession of
a prior patent for the same thing. In his opinion,
the American system of interference was a very dis
advantageous arrangement. If a patent was taken
out, the patentee was called upon to defend it, not
because he was claiming any royalty, but simply
because, unless he did so, as somebody else had
lodged an interference, he would lose it altogether.
He was thoroughly in accord with Mr. Imray, that
the examination of patents in Germany and the
States w T as very unsatisfactory and of comparatively
little use. Not very long ago an objection was raised
to a patent of his own for a transparent varnish
which, unlike ordinary transparent varnishes, was
conductive, on the ground that he had not given a
drawing. He pointed out to the American Patent-
office that it was impossible to draw a varnish, but
they said that they must have a diagram. Eventually
he drew three vertical lines, which he said repre
sented a coating of varnish on a plate of glass, and
got his patent.
Mr. Fletcher Moulton, K.C., M.P., said he
wished to deal with Mr. Siemens’s views on the rights
of a patentee versus the manufacturer. Mr. Siemens, in
his plan for the protection of inventors, said that
anybody who was willing to make an invention
should have a right at once, after the courtesy
of writing to the inventor, of applying to the
Patent-office for a license to make it as much as he
like for, say, 10 per cent, of the saving—nay, on the
most favoured nation clause, if he was only willing
to manufacture it. A man gave his time, thought,
and brains to make a saving for the world,
and the manufacturer, who did not spend a
penny, stood by watching with grim satisfaction
the 99 failures out of 100 inventions, but wffien
one did emerge successfully, he said, “Thank you;
I will take 9 -ioths of the saving, and you may have
as your reward i-ioth.” But it was worse than that.
The patent would be invalidated unless it was worked
promptly. In order to get it worked promptly the
inventor might have to go to some powerful manu
facturers and say that if they would work it he
would grant them a license on very favourable terms.
The poor inventor was then lost, because although
in this w'ay he got his patent worked and saved it
from extinction, if it proved successful any other
manufacturer who was willing to undertake to
manufacture the patent on a commercial scale
was (on the proposals in Mr. Siemens’s paper)
entitled to a license on the very same terms that
the patentee had to make in order to keep
his patent from dying out. He had been brought
very much in contact with the real inventor, and
usually he was by no means a rich man. Their
ancestors were very wise in saying that if advance in
arts and science was desired, it was not the capita
list who should be favoured, but the man who brought
invention and thought to work. They further realised
that it was no use devising a system of rewards which
would depend on the appreciation which some body
of men might have of the value of his invention, but
that the right way w T as to make the reward auto
matic—to say, If you have struck a new thing you
shall be undisturbed in the working of it for
a certain number of years, and thus if it is valuable
you will have rich reward ; if it is not you will have a
poor reward. They realised that the only way
adequately to reward invention in proportion to its
merit was the patent monopoly, and he had never yet
heard anything proposed which could take its place.
That right ought never to be invaded unless the
patentee abused the patent rights byrefusing either to
work himself or to allow other people to work.
The Chairman, in proposing a vote of thanks
to Mr. Siemens, said he entirely agreed with Mr.
Moulton that the only proper reward for invention