RAMIE CULTIVATION IN PERAK. 123 



There are a number of patentees in tlie field, who want 

 to make arrangements with planters to use their machines or 

 processes, and it is quite necessary to point out that they should 

 not be treated with unless, after a careful search in the Patent 

 Office, it can be proved that their patents are valid. It is to be 

 remembered that the possession of a patent in no way implies 

 that the invention is new, or that the document is worth more 

 than its value as waste paper. The English Patent Office 

 will grant any number of patents for the same invention, 

 though only the one which was taken out first is valid. The 

 Office takes no responsibility in the matter, that rests wholly 

 with the patentee. It is also to be remembered that an English, 

 or even a Straits patent, gives no right to the holder to charge 

 royalties or in any way interfere with the use of the invention in 

 the Native States, nothing but a local grant will do that, and up 

 to the present time no rights have been granted in the Native 

 States for the treatment of ramie, so that any machine or 

 pi'oeess may now be used in the Native States free of all 

 royalties. 



The large reward offered for many years by the Indian Gov- 

 ernment, and other rewards offered in France, have turned the 

 attention of numbers of people to the subject, and many patents, 

 amounting to some hundreds, have been taken out for the treat- 

 ment of ramie, so that at the 2)resent day it would be an exces- 

 sively difficult thing to invent a decorticator or de- gumming 

 process which would form the subject of a patent maintainable 

 in a Court of Law. Every imaginable form of drum, beater and 

 scutcher, and combination of them, has been patented over and 

 over again. Many machines have been built and tried, but the 

 greater proportion have never gone beyond drawings and des- 

 criptions. Most probably amongst these latter are some 

 machines which would work if decorticating is practicable on 

 a commercial scale. 



A document has lately been circulated locally, by the owner 

 of a decorticating machine, offering to sell his machines subject 

 to a royalty. According to the figures given in this paper a set 

 of decorticators and the engines to drive them would cost 

 d£ 1,898 and the charge for the use of them would be the modest 

 sum of dfi 10,787 per year. 



The " Gomess " process owners, I understand, are willing to 

 put up works, if a sufficiently large area of cultivation is 

 guaranteed, and treat the ramie, on condition of receiving 25 

 per cent of the out-turn. This is a more reasonable propo- 

 sition, though it is doubtful if it could be woi'ked in practice. 



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