152 Intelligence and Misccllaneotis Articles. 



LAW OF PATENT INVENTIONS. 



Extracts from the Minutes of Evidence taken before a Select Committee 



of the House of Commons, appointed to inquire into the present State 



of the Laxxi and Practice relative to the granting of Patents and 



Inventions. Session of 1829. 



[Mr. Farey's evidence, continued from p. 76.] 



Do you consider that the term of fourteen years issufficient in all 

 cases ? — By no means. In my opinion fourteen years of profitable^ex- 

 ercise of an invention is always sufficient, ifit has not been preceded 

 by loss that is to be repaid. The question is, when that profitable 

 exercise will begin, and how much previous loss and outlay is to be 

 made up : in some instances it begins from the first; in many in- 

 stances it does not take place at all, during the term of fourteen years. 

 In the case of Mr. Woolf's invention of working steam engines by 

 high pressure steam acting expansivelj', (either in one or in two 

 cylinders,) there was no profitable exercise of the invention for at 

 least ten years out of the fourteen, and there was so much loss in- 

 curred at the first, that the profit made during the last four years 

 never repaid it. 



Will you explain what means it is necessary to resort to, in order 

 to obtain an extension of a patent in this country ? — That can only 

 be donebyaspecific Act of Parliament, which is very difficult to ob- 

 tain and very expensive to solicit. 



Are there many instances in which patents have been extended by 

 that means? — Several; but they have rarely been extended, unless 

 the inventors had the foresight to get them extended at an early pe- 

 riod of the invention, when there was no opposition to them ; Mr. 

 Watt would have found it difficult to have obtained his extension at 

 a late period, or without the influence of Mr. Boulton. 



Does not the law, as to the duration of patents, operate very 

 unequally upon diiferent patentees? — Excessively so, almost in the 

 inverse ratio of the merit and importance of the invention. An im- 

 portant invention is only a source of expense and labour to the 

 inventor during several years, until it is brought to bear very com- 

 pletely ; and frequently the greater part of the term expires before 

 it is brought to bear at all. It often happens that the profit arising 

 from the first exercise of it, after it is brought to bear, will not 

 repay the loss and expenses which have been occasioned by its first 

 establishment. 



Can you give any instance of this oppressive operation of the 

 law? — Many: Mr. Woolf's is a striking instance; he carried on 

 business to a loss for at least ten years of his patent, and though he 

 made profit in the last four years, it did not pay the loss during the 

 first period. The extension since given to that invention is so im- 

 portant, that the existence of deep mining in Cornwall at this mo- 

 ment depends upon it. The difference in cost between the quantity 

 of coals consumed by the engines now in use (which are all on Mr. 

 Woolf's system), and by an equal force of engines, such as were in 

 use before he went into Cornwall in 1813, would absorb the profit 

 of all the deep mining that is now carried on in Cornwall. I think 

 Mr. Woolf is more entitled to a public reward, for the services he 

 has rendered, without any recompense, than any inventor who has 



ever 



