“I have in one or two cases given £200 to a party for the use of an invention in which I have told him at once that what we used was not an infringement in any shape or form; but rather than run the chance of going to a tribunal where I was fighting with a man of straw, I have consented (thinking it was prudent to do so) to pay £200.”
Mr. Woodcroft, in keeping with all this, testified—
“I know of existing Patents which are but old inventions, as old as the hills.”
The following extract from the Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science presents another illustration of the mischief the Patent system works:—
“The Patent in question having been purchased for a trifle by Mr. Foxwell, its merits were subjected to close scrutiny, and the specification being found to be defective in some respects, but possessing the quality of elasticity from the vagueness of its phraseology, it was resolved to improve it under the Disclaimer and Amendment Act. After undergoing a compound operation analogous to pruning and grafting, it was found to embrace almost every kind of shuttle sewing machine. In other words, it was hoped by the possession of this invaluable Patent to control nine-tenths of the sewing machine trade of Great Britain. Fired with this idea, Mr. Foxwell commenced legal proceedings against a well-known sewing machine manufacturer for compensation for an alleged infringement of his amended Patent, and at the third trial succeeded in driving his opponent into a compromise, whereby the sum of £4,250 was paid in liquidation of all demands. Encouraged by this success, he, through his solicitor, apprised the trade of his intention to levy royalties on the users of all needle and shuttle machines other than those manufactured by his licences, and, failing to bring many to his terms, he filed bills in Chancery against 134 defaulters.”
Mr. Abel, of Chancery-lane, in a recent pamphlet, writes thus, to show how, in self-defence, Patents require to be taken:—
“In many cases an inventor takes out Patents for immaterial improvements that he is continually making in his processes or machinery, merely for the purpose of indisputably publishing those improvements, in order thereby to prevent the chance of his being debarred from the use of the same, through a Patent being obtained for them by somebody else.”
The following statement is authenticated by Mr. Grove:—
“I had at one time great doubts about it, but things have arrived at a dead lock. The Courts now really cannot try these cases. We have at these very sittings three Patent cases made remanets because they cannot be tried; they interfere too much with other business. We have at this moment going on a Patent trial which is now in its fourth day. We have had within, I think, a week another trial of a Patent, which lasted seven, and a third which lasted five days. During the time that these Patent cases have been going on there have been heavy Patent arbitrations going on, two of which I can speak to myself; one, I think, lasted seventeen days, and the other, which involved a very simple issue, lasted six or seven days. Those arbitrations went on contemporaneously, and the cases were obliged to be tried by arbitration because the Courts could not try them; it would have occupied too much public time. While these cases have been going on several Patent cases have been also ready for argument in banco, and one has been postponed.”
On this part of the subject I again cite Mr. Platt:—