“The Patent is to encourage invention; if, therefore, you would get the same inventions as we now get without Letters Patent, I would have no Letters Patent at all. I believe that, with respect to the minor class of inventions, you would get them.”
Mr. Platt also has his doubts:—
“Is not almost every Patent which is now granted a Patent for an improvement?—A great many Patents are granted for things which are no improvement at all.
“I would simply limit the Patent-Law to that extent. I think there are so many Patents granted that it is a great question with me, I confess, if Patents for these combinations are to be granted, whether it would not be better to abolish the Patent-Laws altogether, as it becomes such a nuisance in conducting a large business.”
How emphatic was Mr. I. Kingdom Brunel:—
“Do you think that there would be an equal inducement for a man to turn his attention to improvements if there were no Patent-Laws, as compared with the present state of things, which lead him to the expectation and hope that he will obtain some exclusive advantage from the discovery of some new improvement?
“I feel certain of it; I have felt it very strongly, and it always struck me as surprising that it was not seen by everybody else; but we have so long been in the habit of considering that the granting of an exclusive privilege to a man who invents a thing is just and fair, that I do not think the public have ever considered whether it was, after all, advantageous to him. My feeling is, that it is very injurious to him.
“My impression is, that in every class of inventions you would practically in the end have a more rapid supply and increase of inventions than you have now; I believe that men of science, and all those who do it for pleasure as well as for profit, would produce more, they would be less interfered with by existing Patents, and they would really produce more; I believe that the working class, the smaller class of inventors, would introduce very much more. With respect to that class of inventions, which I believe to be very few in number, though they are talked of very much, which really involve long-continued expenses, I believe they would probably be brought about in a different manner. I wish, however, to have it understood that I limit my observations to the present state of things. I do not wish to express any opinion as to what might have been formerly the effects of Patents, or whether they did originally encourage inventions or not. I believe that in the first place they are very prejudicial, on the whole, to a large class supposed to exist of inventors, and principally from these circumstances: the present state of things is this, that in all branches, whether in manufactures or arts of any sort, we are in such an advanced state, and every process in every production consists of such a combination of the results of the improvements which have been effected within the last twenty or thirty years, that a good invention now is rarely a new idea.”
So likewise Mr. James Spence:—