Mr. Brunel thus states his conclusion:—
“I believe them to be productive of almost unmixed evil with respect to every party connected with them, whether those for the benefit of whom they are apparently made, or the public.”
I proceed to call attention to the effect of Patents as seen and felt in Government establishments. Before doing so I quote experience in a private shipbuilding-yard.
Mr. Hall, the eminent builder of the Aberdeen clippers, says:—
“As the sailor with his pockets full is a prey to the crimps, so is a ship-contractor a prey to Patent-mongers—patent windlasses, patent reefing apparatus, patent blocks, patent rudders, patent chain-lifters, patent capstans, patent steering gear, patent boat-lowering apparatus, patent paints, and numberless others, all attempting to hook on to the poor contractor. This would be no grievance, were we not aware that most of them are patent humbugs.”
Like many others, he thinks it very doubtful whether the inventor
“Would not be as well without a law which still allows the strong to prey on the weak.”
The following is from the evidence of the Duke of Somerset:—
“I appear to bring under the notice of this Commission the great inconvenience to the Admiralty of the present state of the law. The inconvenience consists in the apparent facility with which persons can obtain Patents covering a very large number of different inventions under one Patent. For instance, there is a Patent which one gentleman obtained some years ago in building ships for a combination of wood and iron. Now, it is almost impossible to build ships in these days without a combination of wood and iron. Therefore a Patent of that kind, where it is wide-spread, as it is in this case, brings us continually under difficulties with this patentee. Whenever we apply wood and iron, he is watching to see whether or not his Patent is invaded, and he complains and says that different improvements which we have made without any notion of his Patent have been infringements of his Patent rights.... We do not know what Patents are now lying dormant; we never move without knocking against several. I think that we are stopped at every turn.... In the case of the screw-propellers the Admiralty, in 1851, purchased five different Patents, hoping that they should have peace by that means, but they had all sorts of claims afterwards; they were told that they had infringed different Patents, and they have had to pay for other Patents since.
“Persons run and take out a Patent for what they think is going to be done in that way. There are a great many in the case of iron ships. I think that when the Warrior was built there were five or six persons who all said that their Patents were infringed, though I believe that, when the Warrior was designed, none of their Patents were known to the designer, and they had never been used.... They showed me different forms of shot which had been made in the Arsenal a great many years ago, but all of which had since then been patented by different persons, who claimed these forms of shot under their Patents.