TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G, _ 671 
bination may be successful and lasting, but unfortunately the best inventors are 
often bad men of business. The elements of the combination are often unstable, and 
the disturbing forces are many and active ; especially is this so when the problem to 
be attacked is one of difficulty, necessitating various and successive schemes involy- 
ing considerable expenditure, generally many times greater than that foreshadowed 
at the commencement of the undertaking. Under such circumstances, unless the 
capitalist or the senior partner or board be in entire sympathy with the inventor or 
exercise great forbearance, stimulated by the hope of ultimate success and adequate 
returns, the case becomes hopeless, disruption takes place, and the situation is 
abandoned. Further, in the majority of cases, after some substantial progress 
has been made it is found that under the existing patent laws insufficient pro- 
tection can be secured, and the prospect of a reasonable return for the expenditure 
becomes doubtful. Under such circumstances the capitalist will generally refuse 
to proceed further unless the prospect of being first in the field may tempt him to 
continue. 
Very many inventors, as I have said, avoid the expense of searching the patent 
records to see how far their problem has been attacked by others. In some cases 
the cost of a thorough search is very great indeed ; sometimes it is greater than 
the cost of a trial attack on the problem. In the case of young and inexperienced 
inventors there sometimes exists a disinclination to enter on an expensive search ; 
they prefer to spend their money on the attack itself. There are some, it is true, 
who have a foolish aversion to take steps to ascertain if others have been before 
them, and who prefer to remain in ignorance and trust to chance. It will, 
however, be said that the United States and German Patent Office reports ought 
to suffice to warn or protect the English patentee; but my own experience has 
been that such protection is not entirely satisfactory. There is, firstly, a con- 
siderable interval before such reports are received, and the life of a patent is 
short. Then, if the patent is upon an important subject, attracting general 
attention, the search is vigorous and sometimes overwrought, and the patent 
unjustly damaged or refused altogether. If, however, the patent is on some 
subject not attracting general attention, it receives too little attention and is 
granted without comment. 
In some few instances it may be said that ignorance has been a positive 
advantage, and that if the patentee had realised how much of his patentable work 
was honeycombed by previous publications and patents, he would have lost heart 
and given up the task. It is, I think, a case of the exception proving the 
rule; and the patentee ought, as far as possible, in all cases to know his true 
position, and make his choice accordingly. The present patent law has some 
curious anomalies. Let us suppose some inventor has the good fortune to place 
the keystone in the arch of an invention, to add some finishing touch which makes 
the whole invention a complete success, and valuable. Then, success having been 
proved possible, others try to reap the results of his labour and good fortune, and, 
as often happens, it is discovered after laborious search that someone else first 
suggested the same keystone in some long-forgotten patent or obscure publication, 
but for some reason or other the public were none the better for his having done 
so. What does the law do? It says this is an anticipation, and instead of appor- 
tioning to all parties reasonable and equitable shares in the perfected invention, to 
which no one could object, it says that the patent is injured or perhaps rendered 
useless by the anticipation, and that its value to everyone concerned is thereby 
diminished or destroyed, as the case may be, and thrown open to the public. Up 
till a few years ago, any anticipations, however old, might be cited; but recently 
the law has been amended, and at present none rank as anticipations which are 
more than fifty years old. 
The perfecting of inventions and their introduction into general use requires 
capital, as we have seen—sometimes a considerable amount, as in the introduction 
of the Bessemer process for steel, or the linotype system of printing—before any 
commercial success can be realised. 
Capital having been found, the next difficulty is in the conservatism of persons 
and communities who are the buyers of the invention. There is always present 
