On Patents and their Utilization. 123 



one, but at the same time seems to be a stern necessity. In 

 all natural and in all human laws we find parallel cases. 



Those persons who object to patent rights on the ground 

 that all monopolies ought to be abolished, are best answered 

 by the statement that a patent right is no monopoly at all ; 

 but merely an arrangement — to use the words of J. Stuart 

 Mill — " by which the originator of an improved process is 

 allowed to enjoy, for a limited period, the exclusive privilege 

 of using his own improvement. This is not making the 

 commodity dear for his benefit, but merely postponing a 

 part of the increased cheapness, which the public owe to the 

 inventor, in order to compensate and reward him for the 

 service." The Government, in fact, buys the invention for 

 the public benefit, and the temporary privilege conceded to 

 the originator is the price received by him for his secret. 



Taking this view of the case governments are especially 

 careful that before a patent is issued the nature of the 

 invention, for which it is granted, shall be so explicitly and 

 plainly stated by the patentee that " any ordinary skilled 

 workman shall be able to make tlie patent article, at the 

 expiration of the term, by simply following the directions 

 given, without following contrivances of his own." This, 

 then, is the real object of the specification, which is not, as 

 many persons imagine, a mere definition necessarily depo- 

 sited that the patentee may be enabled to indicate before a 

 court of law that his invention has been adopted by some 

 one else. 



Patent specifications being of this nature, the patent office 

 of a country becomes the depository of' a vast amount of 

 technical information of the very highest importance to 

 those interested in the advancement of art, science, and 

 manufactures. As an example, between the years ]7ll and 

 1852 specifications accumulated in the English patent-oflice 

 to the number of 12,977, and since that period the rate of 

 increase has varied from two to between three and four 

 thousand annually. In this collection are records of Watt's 

 steam-engine, Arkwiight's loom, and other important con- 

 trivances too numerous to be specified. To utilize this mass 

 of information, the English Government commenced, some 

 twenty years since, the careful indexing and publication of 

 all specifications, &c., in their custody ; a plan which 

 has been followed up by the authorities in many other 

 countries. 



Besides these publications, yet other means of disseminat- 



