A RKVIKW. 95 



" Many valuable inventions are now used in secret and kept ivotn 

 the world, on account of the impunity with which patent rights can be 

 infringed; secrecy being abetter protection to the inventor than the law. 



" These reflections are indulged in with a view to awaken in the 

 public mind a proper estimate of the value of the toils and labor of 

 the inventor, and of his claims to full and effectual protection in the 

 enjoyment of the ftuits of his genius and skill, and to enforce with 

 more emphasis the suggestions which I deem it my duty to submit in 

 relation to such amendments of the law as may be necessary for the 

 security of the rights of inventors. The principal difficulties which 

 the patentee has to encounter, imder the present laws, in enforcing his 

 rights, arise from two circumstances: first, from the fact that the ques- 

 tion of originality may be raised on every trial for infringement; and, 

 secondly, the almost total inefficacy of the existing law to prex'ent in- 

 fringement. 



" In every application, the question of the originality of the inven- 

 tion is thoroughly in\estigated by the Patent Ofifice; and as it is 

 decided affirmatively or negatively, the patent is issued or denied. 

 If the patent is granted, it is very properly (as the ofifice cannot 

 claim infallibility) deemed b\' the law on\y />ri;;ia faiw evidence 

 of the originality of the invention, and of the right of the patentee 

 to recover damages for infringement of his claim. Yet there 

 should be some point at which this question should be deemed as con- 

 clusively settled, and the right of the patentee to recover made abso- 

 lute, or the patent declared to be a nullity. Yet. under the existing 

 laws, such is not the fact; and although the question of originality may 

 have been decided by twenty juries, in as many different trials, it is 

 just as much open to dispute in all subsequent trials. 



" This difficulty in the way of the patentee to recover for infringe- 

 ments, in cases in which the iinention is a very valuable one, and the 

 infringer a wealthy corporation, amounts almost to an insuperable one, 

 as he is kept in the law, and harassed by litigation, until the term for 

 which his patent runs, expires; and he is left without adequate remu- 

 neration for his invention, and sometimes made poorer than when he 

 commenced the fruitless attemj^t to vindicate his rights by an appeal 

 to the law for redress." 



Pat. Off. R. 1847, pages 7 and 9. 



" In my former reports I have recommended a change in some of 

 the features of the patent law as it now exists. P"or the nature of 

 those recommendations, and the reasons on which they are founded. 

 I would respectfully refer to the annual reports of this office, for 1845 

 and 1846. In my judgment the changes proposed are necessary to 

 give adequate security to that valuable and meritorious class of our 

 citizens engaged in inventive pursuits. As the law now is, the reme- 

 dies which it affords to patentees are, in most cases, inadequate to the 

 protection of their rights and the prevention of infringement upon 

 them by that unscrupulous and unprincipled class of jiersons. who 

 make it a practice willfully to depredate upon patent rights, and who, 

 from the basely criminal character of the offence which they commit, 



