1 87 1. J Thoughts Suggested by Patent Rights. 511 



called a primary one ; it begins a new class of bodies. 

 After its mode of operation was pretty well known, it was 

 not very difficult to obtain a large number of other bodies 

 more or less allied. These are evidently secondary disco- 

 veries, and in them the chief difficulty of the law rests. As 

 dependent processes increase around a primary they become 

 easy ; they may come into the hands of men who have little 

 science, and the latest maybe the best in a mercantile point of 

 view. What is to be done with this last ; is it to be ignored ? 

 Here comes in with great propriety the utilitarian national 

 view. These later often come into the hands of wealthy 

 and energetic men, who see that facility and cheapness of 

 manufacture have been attained, and now is the time to 

 launch out money. The people then benefit, and the 

 national advantage of patents is gained to the utmost. 

 Surely it is justice to the inventor that these subsidiary 

 processes shall not overpower his, and it is justice to the 

 nation that the inventor should not have the power of 

 limiting the expansion of his invention. This point was 

 really the greatest difficulty in patent laws, but surely the 

 acumen of legal and scientific men will overcome it, so as to 

 do justice both to the real inventor and the improver of the 

 invention. We are greatly ashamed to see the many little 

 shifts whereby a patent is evaded. Sometimes the real 

 value of the patent is in the result and not in the method. 

 There may be many ways of attaining the same end. We 

 see no reason in such cases for refusing the patent to the 

 result ; let the grant be as a reward of ingenuity or wisdom, 

 and not a narrow-minded attempt to obtain the most and 

 to give the least. A scientific judge would probably throw 

 aside most of the attempts at robbery by men who use the 

 law to break it ; but we do not see how one who has not 

 studied science can see all the bearings of the subject. The 

 writer of a previous article in this journal was severe both 

 on legal and scientific men ; but he ought to have shown 

 more clearly that their faults lie where they interfere with 

 each other, because in the imperfect education of both they 

 are each unintelligible to each other. In a scientific appli- 

 cation some might prefer the judge to be a scientific man 

 with a wide education if such can be got in sufficient num- 

 ber ; they are very rare indeed who can think otherwise 

 than in their own grooves, and the best would require a 

 legal assessor of course. 



It must not be supposed that we neglect the utilitarian 

 national point of view; we object only to its exclusive use. 

 Sometimes it is convenient to look at the sun through a pin- 



