THE LURE OF THE PATENT.
These are examples enough of folly which shows no signs of abatement. The Government offers a patent to inventors of “any new and useful” improvement. There is a notion that invention is an easy road to fortune; on the contrary, there is no harder and more unpromising one. The foolish inventor constantly overlooks the words “and useful,” and the Patent Office, in order that no risk be incurred of smothering improvement by any official dictum that the thing proposed is worthless, has also waived the qualifying words and has thrown the door open so wide that anything may get a patent—not even novelty is strictly enough required. An elaborate muzzle to keep sheep from biting might therefore not be debarred from patent right by the fact that a sheep was never known to bite anything but its own vegetable food; and so long as any combination, although obviously impracticable or even going counter to natural laws, is “novel,” and therefore can obtain the right to litigate which is called a patent, it must be expected that dreamers and persons of misfit intellects will continue the line of applicants. The bicycle is so much in the public eye that it especially draws these persons as the light draws the moth. They will not consult practical men, or, if they do, they will not accept the advice given. They will not even look to see what has already been done in the same line. One of this class came to the writer more than a year ago with some complicated contraption of levers, ratchets, cams, and the like—just the usual thing. Had he been to any bicycle makers? Yes, and none would give him encouragement. Nor could we and we tried to show him how useless his labor was; but he gathered up his drawings and shuffled away. He did not want expert opinion, unless it was of a pleasant nature; he wanted aid to build his contrivance. Like all of his class, he could see nothing beyond his idea, successful on paper, and if he could only get his patent and get a sample made success was sure.
Apropos of this is the classification of cycle patents for 1897 made by the Iron Age. For pneumatic tires there were 110; 106 on handlebars and grips; 105 on driving gears, 70 of these being for chainless; 85 for saddles; 69 for brakes; 51 for frame construction; 50 for cranks and pedals; 17 for spring frames; 124 for stands and racks and for devices for dropping down some sort of prop or leg by which the bicycle might stand alone. The last-named is absolutely valueless and has been so proved; the spring frame has also been tried and virtually rejected; and if a hundred patents on the bicycle and accessories are issued in a year it is almost certain, without examination, that ninety-nine are commercially useless, if not mechanically preposterous. This is so because the practical conditions are narrow and rigid, and because the field has been so repeatedly and minutely gone over.
MAHONEY PATENT—1893.
The crank cycle inventors, of course, are only one class. They are non-riders usually, and not prejudiced by any practical knowledge of the subject; one device (one of the best of the year) has been invented by a man who has not yet mounted a bicycle, but he is a mechanic, not a dreamer. It is sad to see so much waste of time and energy in planning, so much illy-spared money spent in patent fees, and so many disappointed hopes, and if this rapid sketch happen to deter some would-be improver of the cycle and send him to the Klondike for a fortune instead it will not have been without direct advantage to somebody.