808 Transactions of the American Institute. 



the inventor for a moderate sum before an application for a patent 

 has been made, or afterward before the issue of the patent. This is 

 the cheapest time to buy an invention. With any, even very 

 moderate, jndscment in regard to tlie merits, the chances of success 

 are greater than tlie prices asked at this period. In many instances 

 half of a good patent is purchased for the payment of the expenses 

 of making and conducting the application, about $100. The dearest 

 time to buy the whole, or any part, is after a patent has issued, and 

 after the inventor, or his representative, has great ideas of its value ; 

 but before any reliable tests of its merits can be produced. Here 

 the chance of ultimate success is but little improved, while the price 

 of the invention has increased perhaps one hundred fold. In many 

 instances, when inventions are for sale under such conditions, they 

 have been tested privately by the inventors, or their assigns, and 

 found failures. 



An invention may judiciously be purchased immature and untested, 

 but this condition should l)e understood. Draw a strong black line 

 between what has been done, and what some one thinks can be done. 

 In this country, inventions are usually 2'>atented immature ; in Great 

 Britain and France, they are almost necessarily so. Skill, usually 

 other than the inventor's, mi'ist be applied either before or after the 

 issue of the patent. This must be often done in this country to 

 overcome the difficulties interposed by the patent-office before a 

 patent can be secured, and must be always done, in every country, to 

 ■overcome the obstacles in forcing it into use, and to develop and test 

 its- true value. 



Even very, important, simple and economical inventions will not 

 work their own way. The many excellent improvements buried 

 among the rejected applications in the United States patent-office, 

 silently, but eloquently, attest this fact. Nobody hears of them, 

 because it is nobody's interest to drive them. Better inventions, in 

 the woolen manufacture, were refused patents, between the years 1840 

 and 1860, than have been patented since. I do not mean that the 

 later patents do not exhibit a more advanced progress, but that greater 

 steps in advance were described then, and that the subsequent steps 

 have been smaller, as a general rule. An inventor cannot usually 

 conduct his own application for patent, cannot advertise his invention 

 to an un appreciative community, and cannot reduce his invention alone 

 to practical perfection. Different inventors err in different directions. 

 In many cases, an honest inventor, from over enthusiasm, or other 



