“There being an adjournment, for example, for a fortnight or three weeks, is there constantly a fresh burst of evidence to meet the difficulty raised at the last meeting?—Yes, it is so; and that prolongs the case very much; in fact, the case that I have in my mind now I have no doubt will cost the parties a sum of £4,000 or £5,000. I cannot see how it is possible for the verdict to be against them, for it has been a frivolous and vexatious proceeding from the beginning, and with the idea of extorting money.”
And Mr. Scott Russell:—
“In your experience have you not seen a great number of dishonest litigants, plaintiffs who bring actions in the way of persecution, and defendants who desire to destroy a Patent, and where one or other of the parties for the most part acts in bad faith, trying to injure his adversary in any way that he can?—I should say that the greater number of Patent cases are cases of oppression.
“Have you known cases of oppression where the patentee has been the oppressor?—Yes, frequently.
“Have you known cases of patentees with a good Patent, and in which there has been what may be called a dishonest attempt to destroy it?—Yes, I have known both on a very large scale; for example, there was the great hot blast case. I was engaged in that from the beginning in the capacity of arbitrator; and in that great hot blast case the whole litigation arose from the ironmasters, who were making enormous sums of money, wishing to get rid of a very small Patent rate per ton, which had accumulated to an enormous sum in consequence of the success of the Patent. The expenses in the hot blast Patent case amounted, I should think, to more than £100,000.”
In the celebrated capsule case, the expenses have been somewhere about half of that enormous sum. In another case, about three-quarters of it. How true, then, is the following, from Chambers’ Cyclopædia:—
“When a Patent has been granted, if it is of such a nature as to lead to competition, infringements are almost matter of course; and the only mode of discovering and checking the infringement is so ineffective that inventors generally pass their lives in constant litigation, fighting a succession of imitators, who often have nothing to lose by defeat, and therefore entail all the greater burden on the legitimate manufacturer. It has been said that not more than three per cent. are remunerative. A Royal Commission has lately been engaged in inquiries as to the best mode of remunerating inventors and improving the law with reference to infringement; but it is doubtful how far the subject is capable of being put on a better footing, so many difficulties being inherent in it.”
And how many of these pernicious Patents do honourable members think have been repealed? Allow me, as to this, to quote Mr. Grove—
“... Very few Patents have been repealed, and, generally speaking, the patentee has been victorious.”
And the Commissioners’ Report:—