On Patents and their Utilization. 121 



Art. XXXVI. — Patents and their Utilization. 

 By Thomas Harrison, Esq. 



[Read 8th April, 1872.] 



ABSTBACT. 



Tliat it is not desirable that patent laws should be 

 abolished, will appear, I think, from the following considera- 

 tions : — 



1st. Advantages secured under the circumstances of such 

 abolition — that is by each inventor hiding from the public 

 what he had discovered — must, of necessity, be often distri- 

 buted in an unequal and unsatisfactory manner. A 

 discoverer would reap his reward, not as a result of his 

 having conferred a benefit upon society, but as a consequence 

 of his discovery being of such a kind that its nature could 

 be easily concealed. 



2nd. A system of trade-secrets has decidedly a demoral- 

 izing tendency. 



3rd. The system of protection by secret is decidedly 

 inimical to public interests. An illustration of this is given 

 in an article relative to patent laws, appearing in the 

 Mechanics Magazine for August, 1865, p. 96. A Mr. 

 Bessemer, some twenty -five years previously, had commenced 

 the secret manufacture of bronze powder by machinery. 

 His machines produced the article at a cost of six, which, by 

 hand-labour, was made and sold for eighty, shillings per lb. ; 

 and even then, nine years after the patent would have 

 exph-ed, the material could be sold for one-third of the price 

 he was making, and yet yield ordinary profits ! The public 

 is now entirely ignorant of his method of manufacture, the 

 article is comparatively little used, and the high prices are 

 maintained. 



4th. It is not the public alone that sufi'ers by such a 

 system ; the possessors of the hidden secret are often 

 sufierers likewise ; or, at any rate, they often fail to 

 reap the benefits that might accrue to them, were their 

 (jwn empirical and concealed processes open to be inves- 

 tigated and improved upon by science, and by better work- 

 men than themselves. 



The expediency of recognizing the rights of invention is 

 acknowledged by many objecting to the present system, 

 only the methods of rewarding suggested in the majority of 

 instances are not a little singular. Among these is that 

 proposed by the late Mr. Brunei, who, before a select com- 



