12. The Commission to be at liberty to correspond with foreign nations, and act in concert with any that shall establish instead of Patents a system of rewards.
13. In cases in which pre-eminent merit, especially if there has been a course of costly experiments antecedent, appears to entitle to a reward greater than the largest in the schedule, Government may propose to Parliament special augmentations. I do not presume to recommend Royal decorations and titles, though such honours would be much valued.
A writer on Patents has judiciously said—
“It would seem very desirable that a system of registration for all improvements or ideas which an inventor may think of minor importance should be instituted, whereby any one could, at a moderate cost to defray expenses, deposit at the Patent-office, a description of any new idea, improvement, or invention.”
My scheme is calculated to answer this good end.
Here I may fitly call attention to an interesting and instructive analysis which Mr. Woodcroft submitted to the Commission. He showed—
Results of the Examination of the first hundred inventions, for which applications for Patents were made in each of the years 1855, 1858, and 1862 (abridged).
1855.
“Of the first hundred inventions for which applications for Patents were made in the year 1855, none are apparently of considerable value.