NATURE 



141 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1874 



PROTECTION FOR INVENTIONS 



THAT most active and practical body, the Society of 

 Arts, persevering in its endeavours to place our 

 Patent system on an efficient footing, has devoted four 

 evenings to the discussion of the question, the debate 

 being led off by Mr. F. J. Bramwell, C.E., F.R.S., in a 

 paper the ability of which has been warmly and justly 

 extolled on all sides, alike by opponents and supporters, 

 without a dissentient voice. 



Mr. Bramwell, being circumscribed by the narroiv 

 limits of a short address, confined his attention prin- 

 cipally to the question whether or not patents should be 

 abolished. He probably foresaw that the discussion thus 

 provoked would cover wider ground and examine the 

 further question whether the system of patents, if pre- 

 served, does not admit of improvement. And it accord- 

 ingly turned out so, for the latter question was much more 

 fully discussed than the former. 



The unanimity of opinion, indeed, as to the expediency 

 of continuing to grant patents for inventions was most 

 remarkable, the principal, if not the only dissentient, 

 being Mr. John Horatio Lloyd, Q.C. This eminent legal 

 authority, who in his evidence before the Parliamentary 

 Committee urged the abolition of patents, now came 

 forward, it is true, to declare that his opinions had 

 undergone a change, and " expressed a reluctant acqui- 

 escence, though not a settled conviction, as to the expe- 

 diency of protection for patents ;" and he may therefore 

 object to be ranked amongst the dissentients. We must 

 refer to his speech as our justification for so placing him. 

 This speech may be commended to metaphysicians, as 

 throwing great light on the question whether the soul and 

 the mind of man are distinct and separate. Mr. Lloyd's 

 soul evidently haieth patents, but his mind perceives their 

 necessity. Plis mind is only permitted to admit this 

 necessity in the brief sentence we have quoted, and his 

 soul then for the space of an hour employs every artifice of 

 rhetoric to prove that the mind's admission is unwarrant- 

 able and unsound. In no other way can the discrepancy 

 between the arguments and the conclusions be explained. 

 It is impossible that they can both emanate from one and 

 the same mind, and that an unusually acute mind. They 

 issue, obviously, from two distinct and indeed antago- 

 nistic sources. It is not often that the spectacle is 

 afforded us of a good and able man the helpless sport 

 of a psychological contest. Mr. Lloyd's speech settled 

 the main question. Skilful though it was, and delivered 

 with the gentlemanly grace natural to him, the meeting 

 was against him to a man, and listened to him, latterly, 

 even with impatience. After he sat down, no one at- 

 tempted the task, in which he had so signally failed, of 

 proving that patents are injurious to the community, and, 

 assuming them to be abolished, of providing an effective 

 substitute. 



The discussion then turned chiefly on the defects of the 

 present English system and on the peculiar features of 

 some foreign ones, particularly that of the United States, 

 which was alternately approved and condemned. And 

 here, as in mixed assemblages of Englishmen generally, 

 there was much running after details, much reliance on 

 Vol. XI. — Nu. 269 



illustrations, and but a small modicum of broad and 

 systematic treatment. The point principally dwelt on 

 was the necessity for a preliminary examination of patents. 

 This, two members of Pariiament— Mr. Hinde Palmer 

 t2.C., and Mr. Samuelson— informed the meeting, had 

 been recommended by a Committee of the House of 

 Commons on which both speakers had sat ; but though 

 some years had elapsed, no steps had been taken in the 

 matter. Col. Strange caused a sensation by stating that 

 the Patent Commissioners had applied to the Council of 

 the Royal Society to nominate one of three eminent men 

 of science who should perform this herculean task without 

 salary, and that that learned body had, much to its credit, 

 scouted the idea. This elicited strong expressions of 

 opinion on the absurdity, injustice, and inexpediency of 

 grudging to scientific men alone, of all those whose 

 labours directly benefit the community, the liberal remu- 

 neration to which they are entitled. We have more than 

 once brought this question before our readers, as one of 

 those on which views are held in some quarters having a 

 most prejudicial effect on those scientific reforms which 

 are so urgently needed in England. We have never 

 urged the proper remuneration of scientific labour on the 

 grounds of mere philanthropic liberality to the labourer, 

 but on the much higher ground that it is for the benefit 

 of the nation materially, not less than for that of know- 

 ledge, that prospects should be held out of a career to 

 those possessing talents and tastes for scientific pursuits. 

 At present no profession, scarcely any occupation, holds out 

 such small inducements to the rising generation of educated 

 Englishmen as science. It needs no argument to prove 

 that this passive discouragement of one of the spheres of 

 intellectual activity most fruitful of advantages to man- 

 kind must have very injurious results, as we know from 

 every-day experience that it has. We are glad to find 

 that Mr. Bramwell, in his masterly summing up of the 

 debate, ranged himself vigorously on our side of this 

 important question ; and it was with pain that we noticed 

 expressions in the contrary sense, dropped, we trust inad- 

 vertently, by Mr. Samuelson, who, as a member of the 

 Duke of Devonshire's Science Commission, must be well 

 aware how much science suffers by the narrow neglect with 

 which, as a nation, we treat the investigators of nature. 



But to return to the question of a preliminary examina- 

 tion of patents. 



There was some difference of opinion, though not of 

 an irreconcilable nature, as to the expediency of this 

 measure. It was too much assumed, even by Mr. Bram- 

 well himself, that if such an examination were established 

 here, it would necessarily be conducted in the same 

 manner and with the same objects as in America— a 

 perfectly gratuitous assumption. In America patents are 

 examined mainly for novelty and utility, and are often 

 rejected for failure in either respect. It is apprehended 

 that, since inventors are often in advance of their age, an 

 indiscriminate exercise of the power of rejection may 

 retard the introduction of useful improvements — and 

 several alleged instances of this were adduced. It is not 

 always safe, however, to argue by illustration alone. The 

 illustration maybe inaccurately stated or wrongly applied, 

 as in the case of one of those cited by Mr. Cole, who said 

 that the power of rejection '' would have prevented the 

 building of the Crystal Palace, which wise men said must 



