"A man obtained a patent for a slight improvement in straw cutters, took a model of his invention through the Western States, and after a tour of eight months returned with $40,000 in cash or its equivalent.
"Another inventor in about fifteen months made sales that brought him $60,000, his invention being a machine to thrash and clean grain.[p. 17] A third obtained a patent for a printing ink, and refused $50,000, and finally sold it for about $60,000.
"These are ordinary cases of minor inventions embracing no very considerable inventive powers and of which hundreds go out from the Patent Office every year. Experience shows that the most profitable patents are those which contain very little real invention, and are to a superficial observer of little value."
Under the writer's personal observation has come many instances where inventors have secured patents on improvements which to a casual observer would appear insignificant, yet through shrewd management they have been made to yield princely incomes. Among these one case worthy of note is that of a young man in Pennsylvania who secured a patent on a toy game which any person could have thought of, but few would have considered worth protecting by letters patent. He was offered $1,000 for the patent by one manufacturer at the outset which he refused, and afterward he placed it on royalty with quite a number of large manufacturers throughout the country. He receives but one cent on each one manufactured, yet his income averages over $12,000 a year. Another borrowed part of the money with which to obtain a patent on a railway tie plate, which was bought by a[p. 18] corporation for $25,000, after having manufactured it for two years on royalty. And many others, who have realized from one to five thousand dollars on such slight improvements on which few would have thought worth applying for a patent.
Patentees who would realize any considerable amount from their patents must not sit down and expect the other fellow to make money out of their inventions for them.
Inventions as a Poor Man's Opportunity to Advance.
Invention is sometimes called the "genius of the poor," and it is a singular fact that there are a greater number of inventions made by men and women of limited means than by those whose wealth, education, and other advantages would seem to have especially fitted them for success in a field dominated so completely by "brains." This may be explained in a measure by the fact that people of moderate means are brought into closer contact with the arts and manufactures, and are thus the first to discover and improve their defects.
A self-made millionaire, recently speaking to the writer about patents, said: "I know of no business or vocation requiring so small amount of capital, and yielding such immense profits as that of invention. Certainly no person of inventive genius can employ his time and ingenuity to better[p. 19] or more profitable advantage than to invent something that is really needed. Many poor men, through the art of invention, have risen from poverty to reputation, fame, and honor, and taken high places among noted men of all times.
Our moneyed kings may have enriched themselves by stock jobbing, but this precarious procedure requires large capital, and the few enormous fortunes accumulated are merely the monuments marking the graves of thousands of foolhardy unfortunates caught in the vortex of speculation."