420 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF 



worthy information, such as the Patent Office alone could furnish, 

 by means of official examiners. There were large funds in the 

 Patent Office, which, instead of accumulating farther, should be 

 utilised for the benefit of patentees. One of the most essential 

 things was, that it should be clearly pointed out what had been 

 patented and published, in order that the inventor might see 

 whether he had made a mistake, or whether his application re- 

 quired to be modified, in order that he might have a good patent. 

 At present it was simply to pay your money, and take your 

 certificate. If you paid your fee you got your grant ; and if the 

 Patent Office had taken the same fee for precisely the same inven- 

 tion the day before, who cared. The second man lost his money, 

 and the Treasury gained. He thought the most valuable part of 

 the present scheme was, that the examination should not be 

 earned on to the extent to which it used to be carried in 

 Germany, and to which it was perhaps carried still in the United 

 States, but that there should be such an examination as would aid 

 the applicant to a true perception of his position. They had 

 heard some very strong observations against the Bill on the part 

 of the poor inventor, and he (Dr. Siemens) felt disposed to go 

 some length with what Mr. Ley had said, only it would be 

 impossible to carry a measure involving a very large reduction of 

 fees. The fee to be paid by the inventor, in the first place, 

 should certainly not be more than any careful working man could 

 afford to pay, but after having obtained his grant, the question 

 was, how were they to discern whether a patent was a workable 

 patent, and whether the inventor did apply himself to the intro- 

 duction of it or not ? In France, and in some other countries, 

 the law stepped in, and required the patentee to bring some proof 

 after the lapse of one or two years that the invention had been 

 practically introduced, but that provision was very objectionable. 

 If you invented a mouse-trap, you could put it into use within a 

 week ; but if you invented a process, it would take some years 

 before you could possibly expect any practical result. The previous 

 speaker instanced the case of James Watt as one where an inven- 

 tion came perfect into the world ; but he would ask him how it 

 was that Watt spent seven years before he could obtain any 

 practical results, and how it was that he first, in combination 

 with Dr. Roebuck, came to the point that he would have had to 



