“Then there are cases of disputed claims by rival inventors, which are embarrassing to a department; we do not know who has a claim to a Patent, and sometimes when we buy a Patent of one person we are told that we have done a great injustice to another. I remember that when we paid for the Griffith patent screw, which was cutting off a small portion of the screw, I had repeated letters from Sir Howard Douglas, telling me that it was a great injustice to him; that he had invented all this, and that his fame was diminished, and that his rights were taken from him by the Admiralty, who had most unjustly and unfairly paid Mr. Griffith. Those cases are continually arising, and of course they are very inconvenient for a department: they not only take up a great deal of time, but they very often prevent some very desirable process being gone on with.”
Admiral Robinson said—
“There have been twelve upon the construction of ships since 1861.
| Mr. Bush | Construction of ships. |
| Mr. J. Clare | Construction of ships. |
| Mr. P. Drake | Construction of ships. |
| Mr. A. Lamb | Construction of ships. |
| Mr. W. Rae | Keels, stern posts, &c. |
| Mr. Thomas and Col. De Bathe | Mr. G. Clarke’s target. |
| Mr. Truss | Animal fibre. Armour plates. |
| Mr. Beslay | Preservation of iron. |
| Capt. Wheatley | Position of guns in ships. |
| M. De Lapparent | Carbonising timber. |
| Commander Warren | Bow rudder. |
| Mr. Feathers | Construction of ships. |
| Messrs. Woodcraft, Smith, Ericsson, Lowe, Blaxland, and Mr. Currie. | Purchase of Patents for screw propellers. |
| Capt. Carpenter | Screw propeller. |
| Capt. Trewhitt | Disconnecting apparatus. |
| Mr. Griffith | Screw propeller. |
| Mr. J. O. Taylor | Screw propeller. |
| W. Ireland | Cupola. |
| Messrs. Laird and Cowper | Trimming coals in ships. |
| —— | Distilling apparatus in ‘Defence.’ |
“In those cases the patentees claimed compensation for infringement?—Yes; and it was necessary for the Admiralty to have recourse to their solicitor, and to enter into a very long correspondence.
“It is very possible that you may infringe upon these Patents without knowing it?—Constantly. The inconvenience which the Duke of Somerset has mentioned resulting from Patents applied to shipbuilding is so very great that it is scarcely possible to build a ship, being a combination of wood and iron (and you always have some of each in a ship), without treading upon somebody’s Patent; and I am entirely of opinion that the Patents are drawn up for that especial purpose, without any idea of their being practically applied for the benefit of the public, but only that the patentee may lie in wait for a colourable evasion of his Patent taking place.”
Now I present the evidence of General Lefroy, deputed by the War-office:—
“The expectations of patentees are very extravagant, generally speaking, and prior to trial it is very difficult to determine at all what is the value of an invention. As an example, a gentleman some time ago made a great improvement in cooking apparatus, and he assessed his own reward at a large portion of the whole saving in fuel which might be effected by the application of this improvement to an enormous extent upon the whole military consumption of the Crown, which would have come to many thousands of pounds. Such an improvement should not be assessed by the value to the Crown, but by what it cost the originator in intellectual labour or previous experiment, and its importance in a large sense.”
Let me next cite Mr. Clode, Solicitor to the War-office:—