EXPERIENCE IN FRANCE.
The following observations were published in the Avenir Commercial, November 1, 1862, and June 28, 1863, have been kindly translated and presented by the Author:—
THE RESULTS OF A BAD LAW.
I.
When you walk along a public road, if you find a watch, a diamond, a note of a hundred or a thousand francs, and, far from seeking the owner to give it back, you apply it to your own use, moral law and civil law take hold of you and condemn you without hesitation. It matters not whether he who lost what you found be rich or poor, his carelessness, his negligence, or the accident that caused his loss, give you no sort of right to use it and make it yours.
There are not two opinions on that point: the laws of all countries condemn the man who enriches himself with what chance throws in his way.
But if a scientific man—seeking some impossible discovery, finds a clue to an idea—meets with an interesting phenomenon—indicates, in some way, new properties belonging to some bodies—announces the results of some new chemical combination—it is only a scientific research. This or that other skimmer of inventions can get a Patent for the application of the idea, of the discovery, of the method; and the law guarantees his pretended right not only against all reclamations of the scientific man who has discovered the whole, but against the whole world, deprived of all possibility of making use of the discoveries of science!
And not only the law forbids every one to use this or that produce, except if made by the patentee, but it also prohibits the use of any similar produce made by different means.
Then, to prevent all inventors to approach the ground that the patentee has chosen, he takes immense care to have his Patent made of formulas so wide and elastic, that all inventions in the same course of ideas will be infringements in the eye of the law.