TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 675 
undoubtedly a step in the right direction. It would be of great benefit gene- 
rally if some scale of duration of patents could be fixed internationally, the 
scale being fixed according to the subject-matter, the difficulty of the attack, and 
the past history of the subject, but more especially in view of the utility of the 
invention. 
One of the chief objections raised by the Privy Council against the extension 
of patents in this country has rightly been that undue prolongation is unfair to 
the British public, seeing that abroad no prolongations are granted. Therefore, if 
the duration of patents for important matters is to be extended at home it must 
also be extended abroad. In other words, such prolongations, to be effective, 
should necessarily extend to other countries. They should be international, and 
concurrent in all the countries interested. 
One possible solution of this difficult question would be to place such matters 
under the jurisdiction of a Central International Committee, who would have the 
apportionment of the life and privileges of patents and of the extension or curtail- 
ment of their duration, according to their handling by the owners. I would ask, 
Why has a patent a life of only fourteen to sixteen years, while copyright is for 
forty-two years? Why hasa pioneer company making a railway under Act of 
Parliament generally rights for ever unless it abuses its privileges, or the require- 
ments of the district necessitate the construction of competing lines, while a 
patent has in comparison a life of infinite shortness P 
I might also cite gas companies, electrical supply companies, under Act of 
Parliament, or provisional orders of forty-two years’ duration; and this reminds us 
of the fact that until the term of life for electric supply companies had been 
extended from twenty-one years to forty-two years by the bill of 1884, it was 
impossible to find capital for such undertakings. 
Now, it may be urged that the grant of a patent is a different thing from the 
grant of power to a railway company, a gas or electric supply company. But 
the object of this Address has been to show that a patent, to be fair to the 
patentee, ought in many cases to be analogous to an Act of Parliament or a pro- 
visional order. Would it not place matters in a fairer position, especially in the 
case of expensive and lengthy researches, to grant to those who pledge themselves 
to spend a suitable and minimum sum within a stated period on the research a 
reasonable and fair monopoly, so that such person or syndicate might in the event of 
success be in the position to reap a reasonable return for their expenditure and risk ? 
Some such measure would unquestionably give an immense stimulus to 
research and invention by enabling capital to be raised and works started on com- 
mercial lines in fields of great promise at present almost untouched. 
I pass over the disadvantages to the British inventor of the hostile patent 
tariffs of Continental nations and of the protective patent laws of some of the 
British dependencies, disadvantages greater than those imposed by protective 
tariffs on the ordinary British manufacturer. 
There is, however, another aspect of the question to which I would briefly 
allude: it is the great benefits that the world at large has derived from the work 
of inventors in the past. 
Think of the multitude and power of the great steam-engines and gas-engines 
that drive our factories, and pump the water out of our mines, and supply our 
cities with water, light, and power; of the great steamships scattered over the 
ocean and the locomotives on the railways. 
Think of the billions of tons of steel that have been made by the Bessemer, 
Siemens-Martin, and Thomas Gilchrist processes, and of the great superiority 
and less cost of the material over the puddled iron which it superseded. 
Think of the vast work performed by the electric telegraphs and telephones; 
and we must not fail to include the great chemical and metallurgical processes 
carried on all over the world, besides the countless other inventions and labour- 
saving appliances. 
Can we form any idea of tke commercial value of all these gigantic tools 
that past inventors have left as a heritage to the human race, and can we venture 
to place any order of magnitude on so vast a sum ? 
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