What Preliminary Investigation Requires.
... To diminish the period for which he shall be allowed to retain his exclusive right.... If a gratuitous privilege of five years’ duration be a sufficient price for John Bull to pay inventors for inducing them to make their inventions Patent, I know no just reason why he should pay more in the form of monopoly price for that which he can purchase for the shorter term.... To enable an efficient preliminary investigation to be made with facility, either by individuals, or by the official examiners, I propose to compile a history of inventions, discoveries, and processes, for one rather more full and modern than Beckman’s would be required. I have long advocated the compilation and official publication of this great work, for it is not nearly enough for this purpose to have only a classified abridgment of the specifications of English or British Patents. In addition to this, besides all foreign Patents, a brief classified description of the million things formerly and now being done and suggested is almost absolutely necessary to enable either official or private investigators to arrive at anything like a probable resolution of the question, if a given thing it is proposed to Patent is new.—Extract from “English Mechanic,” July 9, 1869.