THE UNITED STATES PATENT LAWS 379 



such manufactures, which others, at the time of making 

 such letters patent and grant, shall not use, so as also they 

 be not contrary to the law, nor mischievous to the state, by 

 raising prices of com.modities at home, or hurt of trade, or 

 generally inconvenient: The said fourteen j^ears to be 

 accounted from the date of the first letters patent or grant 

 of such privilege, hereafter to be made; but that the same 

 shall be of such force as they should be, if this act had never 

 been made and of none other." 



I quote this section of the statute in full because it is 

 the first English statute on the sul)ject, and is the very founda- 

 tion of our o^\^l laws on the subject of patents. These laws 

 are the result of development and evolution. 



Mr. Robinson, the author of one of our most elaborate 

 treatises on the subject of the patent laws, has said that in 

 this statute, as interpreted by the English courts, are found 

 the sources of the patent kuvs of the United States. 



The 150 years following the statute just referred to 

 covered the colonial period of the United States. During 

 that period of our existence there was, as is well known to 

 all, very little manufacturing within the present borders of 

 the United States, and very little improvement in the man- 

 ufacturing arts was made by the colonists. The country 

 was very thinly and sparsely settled; the colonists, our fore- 

 fathers, had duties to perform which were much more press- 

 ing upon them than the making of inventions or improve- 

 ments in the method or art of doing things in the manufac- 

 turing w^orld. The colonists were making a continual fight 

 for existence and constant effort to subdue the many ob- 

 stacles incident to the development of a new country, and 

 had no time to engage in the fascinating and frequently prof- 

 itable pursuit of making improvements and inventions in 

 existing devices in the manufacturing arts. 



It is not surprising that under these conditions the colo- 

 nists made few inventions. But there was still another 

 obstacle in the w^ay of improvement by the colonists of the 

 manufacturing arts. This obstacle was the attitude of 

 England toward the colonists upon this matter. It was 

 England's idea that the colonists should sup[)l}' raw articles 



