No wonder, then, that it is said the system hurts inventors themselves, even those inventors who are patentees:—
“Nothing could work greater injustice qua the inventors themselves than the present Patent-Law does. Many most meritorious inventors under the present Patent-Law are utterly ruined, enrich others, and never pocket a farthing themselves; therefore the present law is as unjust as a law can be in its practical working.”
Listen to the elder Brunel:—
“Almost invariably when the Patents come before the public, the beneficial interest in them is not held, to any great extent, by the original inventor, but that it has changed hands many times before it comes out before the public. I should say that, in the majority of cases, the original inventor gets little or nothing. In most cases the original inventor has a very small beneficial interest left in it, and in most cases I doubt whether, even in Patents that are saleable, he is much the gainer on the whole, taking into account his previous loss of time and money.”
Sir W. Armstrong points out how, and how much, poor inventors suffer:—
“I have every week letters from inventors, and I dare say you have the same; I have scores of them. Poor men very often come to me imagining that they have made some great discovery. It is generally all moonshine, or, if it looks feasible, it is impossible to pronounce upon its value until it has passed through that stage of preliminary investigation which involves all the labour, and all the difficulty, and all the trouble. Many a poor man is ruined by fancying he has made a discovery which, by means of a Patent, will bring him a fortune. He loses all relish for his usual pursuits, and sacrifices his earnings to a phantom.”
Mr. Spence agrees:—
“I do not believe that any system of law could be devised which would enable a poor inventor in this country to fight his own battle. He can only fight it by interesting some capitalist, more or less wealthy, in the probable promise of his invention; the result is, as all know, that some ninety-eight out of every hundred Patents end in loss to the parties and are worthless to the public.”
Mr. Grove leads to the same conclusion from another point:—
“If the patentee himself was a wealthy man and a large manufacturer, having 20, 30, or 40 Patents in his possession, he would struggle to the utmost to maintain his Patent; he would retain the ablest advocates and the ablest scientific witnesses; and there would be no chance of repealing the Patent unless the person opposing it had something like an equality of purse to go into the field. You never could get the battle fought if one side was wealthy, without the opposite party having something like equal powers to oppose him.”