“It is difficult for a manufacturer to move in any direction without treading on the toes of some sort of a patentee.”
Likewise Mr. Montague E. Smith, Q.C., M.P., said:—
“In several cases in which I have myself been counsel, very great inconvenience has arisen from the multiplicity of Patents which an inventor has had to wade through to see that he has not been anticipated.”
How truly did Sir W. Armstrong observe to the Commission—
“You cannot grant a monopoly without excluding other persons who are working upon the same subject.”
Again:—
“Here the State grants to an individual a monopoly, and therefore the public are at his mercy.”
Mr. J. S. Russell, who himself has taken out a good many Patents, speaks more specifically:—
“There are a great many Patents of that kind taken out for boilers of steam-engines, and boilers of steam-engines admit of a very enormous variety of shape and proportion without damaging their efficiency.... The consequence is, that I have not defended any of my own. I have never made of mine more than a mere registry of priority of invention. I have not made mine a source of money, but I have suffered in this way from Patents: I have gone on, in the course of my business, doing my ordinary work, and I have found other people taking out Patents for what I was doing without calling it an invention, and then prosecuting me under the Patent they had taken out for my own inventions, and it appears that there is nothing to prohibit them from doing that.”