“I have a list of something like 100 inventions that I should have patented thirty or forty years ago, but for the cost.
“I could mention one by which many lives would have been saved if I had had a Patent for it.
“I very rarely make models, but I had one made for this. It was made many years ago. I invented it in 1830, and I mean to say that, if it had been put into practice, things would not have happened which have happened, and which have caused the loss of many lives, as connected with railways.”
I adduce this evidence to prove that inventions actually made are kept back just now. I don’t require to go far for a party who has two or three small inventions (not connected with his own line of business); but—such is our “system”—no ready means to publish, and so has for years kept them back. But a more remarkable instance is present to my mind. Since about twenty years the same party, having been then consulted by an employé of a house near Birmingham, is the reticent possessor of an inventor’s secret. That inventor’s name he does not know. His invention is ingenious, and may be practicable. It affects an article of universal consumption, and, so far as I know, has never been patented or thought of by anybody else than he who confided the secret, nor introduced to use by him, although, in my opinion, sufficiently promising to be worthy of attention.
One of the ways in which Patents hurt trade is shown by Mr. Platt:—
“Are there not some large manufacturers who like to keep the monopoly of a Patent in their own hands, who obtain money and go on manufacturing without granting licences to others?—Yes.”
Sir W. Armstrong testifies to this power to refuse licences:—
“Is it not the case that such possessor could refuse you a licence, and so prevent you from making the improvements altogether?—Certainly he could.”