I have been behind the scenes the whole time.

The result has been that I have never taken out a patent myself, or ever thought of doing so; and I have gradually become convinced that the whole system of patents is, in the present advanced state of arts and science and manufactures, productive of immense evil.

I think that it does nothing of what it professes to do, and which I believe to be impracticable in the present state of things, but that, on the contrary, it impedes everything it means to encourage, and ruins the class it professes to protect, and that it is productive of immense mischief to the public.

I should wish to observe that my opinions are not formed from any theory, or from any consideration of what are or ought to be the laws of patents, or whether the details of such laws are capable of improvement or otherwise; but they are simply the result of a very long and tolerably intimate knowledge of the operation of the hope of protection held out, and the operation of that protection such as it can be when obtained; and these results do not, in my opinion, depend at all upon any question of whether patents are cheap or dear, whether they are granted sparingly or profusely, by a simple or by complicated machinery; it is the ruinous effects upon the class of inventors, of the false dreams and hopes excited by the system, and the injurious effect upon improvements of the greater or less degree of exclusive privilege which is attained, which I have had constantly before my eyes for so many years, and which must be increased by any real improvement of the patent laws.

I should, therefore, be an advocate for very cheap patents granted with great facility, to the poor illiterate workman, as well as to the rich manufacturer with his counsel and agents, and as well protected as legal ingenuity can devise.

If the system is good in principle it must bear extension, but I believe it could not stand a twelvemonth under such a test—every evil now inherent in the system would be greatly increased in quantity, and the absurdities which are now ascribed to errors of detail would all become so evident that the system would be abandoned by universal consent.

I believe, paradoxical as it may seem, that the privileges thus promised and granted to inventors are most injurious to them. To understand this, it must be known and borne in mind that useful inventions or improvements in the present day, certainly in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, are not new discoveries, but generally slight modifications of what is already in use; judicious applications of known principles and of well-known and common parts of machinery, or of common substances, very often mere revivals or re-inventions of something which had many times previously been thought of, and perhaps tried, and failed from the want only of some substance or of some tool which has since been introduced.

I believe that the most useful and novel inventions and improvements of the present day are mere progressive steps in a highly wrought and highly advanced system, suggested by, and dependent on, other previous steps, their whole value and the means of their application probably dependent on the success of some or many other inventions, some old, some new. I think also that really good improvements are not the result of inspiration; they are not, strictly speaking, inventions, but more or less the results of an observing mind, brought to bear upon circumstances as they arise, with an intimate knowledge of what has already been done, or what might now be done, by means of the present improved state of things, and that in most cases they result from a demand which circumstances happen to create. The consequence is that most good things are being thought of by many persons at the same time; and if there were publicity and freedom of communication, instead of concealment and mystery, ten times or a hundred times the number of useful ideas would be generated by each man, and with less mental effort and far less expenditure of time and money.

In the present state of things, if a man thinks he has invented something, he immediately dreams of a patent, and of a fortune to be made by it. If he is a rich man he loses his money, and no great harm is done; but if he is a workman, and a poor man, his thoughts are divided between scheming at his machine in secret, and scheming at the mode of raising money to carry it out. He does not consult his fellow-workmen, or men engaged in the same pursuits, as to whether the same thing had ever been tried, why it had failed, what are the difficulties, or (what is most probable) whether something better is not already known, and waiting only the demand. In nine cases out of ten he devotes his time and money to the idea, instead of pursuing his legitimate and natural pursuits. In elaborating this idea his whole thoughts are turned to the means of making it different from what he may happen to know of similar ideas, so that he may secure a patent, rather than to an honest endeavour to obtain the most useful result. He does not make use of other good ideas which may be already patented or in use, even if he knows of them, because his sole object thenceforth is not improvement, but ‘exclusive right.’ After much time and money spent in experiments, he takes out a patent. I will assume that the mere patent costs him nothing, but the waste of time and money in elaborating his idea is generally considerable, and far more serious in its effects upon the man than the payment of the fees now demanded for a patent. When his patent is complete, and his invention published, the chances are, and ever will be, one hundred or one thousand to one that it is not worth a sixpence as an exclusive right which others will buy of him: every chance is against him.

In the first place it must be a good thing, it must be an improvement upon the very ‘best thing’ of the same sort: the chances are of course great against this.