J.40 TRAySACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



were ofl'ered a iuillion,iii the first flush of his triumph, that lie would 

 hesitate about touching it without sleeping over it for a night. Yet 

 fourteen thousand millions would be a pretty heavy bill to pay from 

 a treasury not over full. Fourteen hundred millions might be 

 thought an important addition to the national debt; or even one mil- 

 lion four hundred thousand, which would l)e just one hundred dollars 

 a piece for all the patented inventions of 1869. I think, therefore, 

 that we may set aside the plan of purchase as impracticable. No 

 commission could satisfy the inventor, and no price that we could 

 afford to pay would take the place of the stimulus of the hope of 

 unlimited wealth, which now lightens his toil and shines like a bea- 

 con at the entrance of the harbor that he hopes to make. The other 

 plan is to offer protection for a limited time, in payment for the new 

 discovery. "We may say to the inventor, " You have a valuable 

 secret which may benefit us ; to disclose it without protection would 

 be to lose it ; to keep it would deprive us of its use. If you will 

 disclose it to us by so describing it and illustrating it, as that we may 

 fully understand it and may avail ourselves of it without difficulty, 

 we will agree that for seventeen years you shall be protected in its 

 use. You may make out of it what you can. When your limit of 

 time has expired we shall have it without further payment. We 

 cannot pay you in money, we will pay you in time." I submit that 

 this is a fair bargain. A new thought developed, explained, des- 

 cribed, illustrated, put on record for the use of the nation — this on 

 the one side. The right to the exclusive benefit of this new thought 

 for a limited time, and protection in that right — this on the 

 other. This is the patent system. A fair contract between the 

 inventor and the public — ideas paid for by time. It is manifest that 

 the utmost good faith is required upon both sides. On the one hand 

 there must really be an invention — no stealing of the ideas of other 

 men, no crude notions resting only in experiment. The inventor 

 must have something to sell. On the other hand there must be pro- 

 tection — no infringement, no piracy, no stealing of the soul of the 

 invention by clothing it in immaterial changes of form. To secure 

 this fair dealing we have, on tlie one side, the patent office, with its 

 examiners, its drawings, its models, its books and its foreign patents, 

 to scan and test the invention. On the other side we have the courts 

 of law to protect the inventor and punish the thief. It is possible 

 that these instrumentalities may do their work imperfectly. This 

 may sometimes happen ; but to the extent to which they do it, a faij- 



