Scientific Culture, and Other Essays / Second Edition; with Additions

by Jr. Josiah P. Cooke

Were it necessary to sustain the opinions here advanced by further illustrations, we need only point to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, which holds foundations like those we have advocated; for the names of Davy, Young, Faraday, Tyndal, and Dewar, are a conspicuous memorial of the very great success of such endowments in advancing physical science.

It is obvious, however, that the endowment of professorships and fellowships will be of no value to the community unless it is understood that the incumbents are set apart for their special work; and the suggestion that such positions could be used to favor private ends, or as the basis of mercantile transactions, is sufficient to show how inconsistent such a practice is with the true conception of scientific culture.

Our patent laws have a very marked and not altogether a beneficial influence on the scientific culture of the country. It is true that they foster mechanical ingenuity and inventive talent in certain directions, but they also set before the people a very low and mercenary standard of scientific attainment, upon which the popular notion of the utilitarian tendency of scientific studies is to a great extent based. No one can question that the discoverer of a new process, or the inventor of a new machine, has a right to keep his knowledge to himself, and to make the best use he can of his good fortune to increase his wealth. But certainly the motto at the head of this essay points to a more excellent way, and it is at least an open question whether it is for the interest of the community at large to encourage by its laws the more selfish course. The argument by which the patent laws are usually defended by legal writers—that it is for the benefit of the community to encourage and therefore to protect inventive talent—is by no means so unanswerable as it appears prima-facie.

In the first place, it may be questioned whether, in the present condition of our patent laws, they do not hinder more than they foster invention. Any one who has attempted to perfect a machine, or improve a chemical process, knows to what extent he is hampered on every side by patent rights, which often have no value to the holders except that which the new improvement may give to them.

Again, the inventions which the patent laws foster are only those having an immediate pecuniary value, and it is often exceedingly simple contrivances—like the needle of a sewing-machine or a gaudy toy—which yield the greatest return; simply because they have been accommodated to present emergencies or to passing popular fancy. Such contrivances usually manifest no extended knowledge and no special talent, and the inventor owes his good luck to the sole circumstance that he was in a position to recognize the want.

Now, every scientific investigator knows that the ordinary work of a physical or chemical laboratory frequently demands inventive ability of a high order, and that few important scientific results have been reached that have not involved inventions as worthy of admiration as the sewing-machines and power-looms which are so frequently cited as examples of the beneficent influence of our patent laws; and the question arises, is it for the interest of the community to promote one class of inventions more than the other? Certainly, if we consider either the sacrifice involved, or the ultimate good which eventually results to the community, there can not be a moment's question which class is the most valuable or most worthy of commendation. Yet the patent laws not only give their immense prizes solely to inventions of immediate utility, but also tend to raise a false estimate of the intrinsic value of such inventions in the public mind.

Some writers have gone to the extreme of claiming that a man has the same right in his inventions or discoveries that an author has in his books; but this claim will not bear analysis. The first duty of a government is to protect its citizens in the enjoyment of the results of their lawful labor, and certainly any one who has written a book knows that it is just as much the product of day-labor as any article of merchandise. On the other hand, an invention or discovery may be the result of a fortunate accident, and, although it may be the fruit of superior knowledge and intelligence, it can not be regarded in the same sense as a direct product of labor. It is much more frequently a free gift of Nature.

Moreover, it is seldom if ever the case that a useful invention, meeting a popular want, and therefore having a large commercial value, is in any sense the product of one man. As a general rule, the patentee who enjoys the right to the invention has actually added to the old stock only a single detail. It may be that this detail was the one thing required to make the invention practically useful; but it is certain that the addition could never have been made if the previous knowledge had not existed, and it is at least an open question whether the community ought to grant to the last man an exclusive right to the whole inheritance. Volta discovered—invented, if you please—the mode of generating a current of low-tension electricity, which has been ever since, with certain modifications, in general use; Oersted and Ampére discovered the magnetic effects of this electrical current; Faraday, again, learned how to produce an electric current from a magnet, and invented the original dynamo-machine; Henry discovered the conditions under which the magnetic effects of an electric current might be produced at great distances from the source of the power. All these men were inventors of the highest order, whose inventions have never been excelled either in the ingenuity displayed, or in the influence exerted on the welfare of mankind. Moreover, these far-reaching inventions were a willing contribution to the world's knowledge, for which no pecuniary compensation was either asked or received. Is it not, then, a question if any man of the present day has a right to the exclusive use of these inventions; for writing messages at a distance, for transmitting sound over wires, or for any purpose whatsoever?

There is of course another side to the question, and I freely admit the difficulty of the problem which our patent laws present; but I feel that in their present condition they do more harm than good, and do injustice more frequently than they protect right. I greatly doubt if it is safe to grant by statute property in any invention or discovery beyond the definite mechanical contrivance in which it is for the time embodied. To grant the sole use of a well-known power of Nature to produce a specific effect, although the effect be a novel one; to give the monopoly of a process of Nature to the man who was the first to claim it; above all, to grant the sole right to make a specified mixture of materials—is certainly a policy which directly encourages vast monopolies, that tax the public without rendering a corresponding benefit.

In this connection it must be remembered that the discoverer or inventor himself rarely reaps the fruit of his sagacity or skill; but his rights, frequently purchased for a song, are made the basis of great business enterprises in which he has little or no share. On such a slender basis have frequently been built up huge monopolies, in which the patent laws have been made the instruments of oppressive exactions, and have become the nucleus of a most complex system of usages and legal decisions, by which the original intent of the laws has been wholly overlaid, and to a great extent nullified.