VII.
The eminent Professor of the “Musée de l’Industrie Belge” makes a just and well-founded criticism on the diverse laws of different countries relating to Patents. Usually law-makers do not appear so perplexed, nor contradict themselves so frankly; this is because, when we forget what is right, when we leave principles to make a legal caprice, we sail over unknown seas, where no lighthouse guides us, nor compass shows us the right direction.
He attributes to the defective state of these laws “the almost unanimous censure displayed either against the legislation or against property in inventions.”
Would it not be more reasonable to acknowledge that if the learned law-makers of the numerous countries in which the principle of property in inventions has been adopted have not been able to frame laws capable of protecting the rights of pretended proprietors conjointly with those of individuals and society at large, it is because the principle is radically wrong, and contrary to the general interests of mankind? The law-giver finds an obstacle at every side in legitimate scruples; he fears to give too much, and he fears to take too much.
At present the censure is almost unanimous, it is acknowledged. Let us suppose that property in invention were abolished, and what complaints would result from the abolition? Few or none. When the inventor knew that, placed on the same level as all other workers, he must only rely on his intelligence, his capital, his time, and his right arm he would leave off claiming a privilege and complaining of the insufficiency of his rewards. At present the inventor says to the State: “I have found out a great thing, but I require your protection; you must place at my disposal your agents and your law-courts; the first shall enter the homes of my fellow-citizens, shall search their drawers, examine their books and papers, in my interest. By the second, their cause being lost, shall be condemned to ruin and misery. I am about to bring ruin on such and such manufacturers, to condemn a crowd of work-people to idleness; but you must grant me a privilege which will place me beyond the reach of all opposition, and allow me to make a fortune, quietly and without much chance of a failure.”
What difference do the champions of Patents find between this language and that which was held by the Protectionists? They also required Custom-house officers, and law-courts always open, to punish the smuggler; they further required the ruin of those who traded with distant countries, and the continual inactivity of our mercantile marine and sea-board population.