214 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



time of Cajsar and Heury VIII. What has in this time awakened the inventive- 

 spirit? Largely, the right to the patent. When the government acknowledged 

 that the inventor had a right to the fruit of his brain, inventive genius took a- 

 start. 



If a man devotes years to the completion of a contrivance to save the labor 

 of men, it is right that he should have property in this contrivance. If I give 

 you an idea to-night yoa may go out and use it, because these ideas are not 

 copyrighted; but Congress, ia order to foster invention, established the patent 

 right system, and in consequence we have this harvest of invention. 



At Hudsonville, members thought the patent law had become a nuisance, 

 and should be abolished. There are certainly evils in it and- these should be 

 looked into. When first in Congress, I was put on the Committee on Patents, 

 and took up the subject to investigate it, and was charmed with the men with 

 whom this threw me in contact — with the patent lawyers — men who add to the 

 usual legal requirements, special mechanical skill. In their library I saw the rec- 

 ords of the patents of the nation. Often, now, the inventor loses, because it takes 

 money to secure the patent aud put the patented article on the market. A 

 patent is an exclusive right for a limited time, to use, sell, and make the inven- 

 tion; after which time it becomes the property of the whole world. Out of 

 300,000 patents probably not 5,000 have paid the inventor — all the rest have 

 been a loss to the inventor. A patent to be valid mvist be neio, never known 

 before, not even one thousand years ago. 



An inventor makes his application aud the examiners look through 300,000 

 patents to see if this has been previously patented in t.ie United States. They 

 have copies of hundreds of thousands of foreign patents, which must also be 

 examined. Xot only that, but from whatever source the evidence comes, if it 

 appears that the principle has ever ieen known the claim is not valid, and so 

 the examiner searches through cyclopaedias, newspapers, etc. , etc., and if the 

 claim seems to be novel, the applicant gets his patent. Let the examiner be 

 as honest as may be, he may miss some previous knewledge, and so, after the 

 patentee begins to manufacture, others making the same thing, institute suit to 

 show that the patent is invalid. Sometimes many contests are made over the 

 same thing. Often it is the most trifling patent which brings the best returns.^ 

 I remember one case. I have just been in a hardware store and got a tin spoon 

 of which the jDrice was one cent. It is cut from a straight, flat piece of tin. 

 That feature is not patented, but the handle is creased. That crease strengthens 

 the handle five-fold, and is patented, and the patentee wanted his patent 

 extended after he had received $125,000 and spent $50,000 fighting an infringe- 

 ment, thus clearing $75,000. I thought he had made enough and reported 

 against its extension. Nearly everything has been patented. They tell us of 

 our being taxed 'rom the cradle to the grave. We are certainly covered by 

 patents from the cradle to the grave. I concede that there are some evils that 

 should be remedial, but this does not prove that the system should be wiped 

 out. I would ask if any one ever came to grief by buying at regular stores? 



Prof. Beal : In i ansing, harrows v sre sold th" ' were infringments of patents. 



Prest. Willits: ^Vell,that is one case. But in general it is the perambulating 

 agent that gets you into trouble, and I dare venture that other swindlers have 

 hurt you as much as all the patent right swindlers. For instance the Bohemian 

 oat men. 



I remember one patent -case, the clover huller, for which, as member of 

 the committee on patents, I was asked to extend the patent, when at 



