of Edinburgh^ Session 1865 - 66 . 463 
given liberal fees to several functionaries of the State, and con- 
tributed nobly to the Patent Fund. 
That any patent is frivolous and injurious, in the sense of inter- 
fering with the functions of honest traders, is simply untrue. If 
an invention which has been patented at the cost of L.175, and 
produced nothing in return, is a necessary part of an important 
invention subsequently patented, it is a positive proof that patents 
apparently frivolous may be truly valuable. The first invention is, 
therefore, neither an obstacle to improvements, nor a ground for 
litigation. It has, on the contrary, led to a greater invention ; 
and whether the second patentee has used it ignorantly, or ad- 
visedly, he ought to pay for the use of it, instead of pleading in a 
court of law, as he generally and dishonestly does, that the original 
specification is defective. 
But even if the cases of interfering patents were more numerous 
than they are, and more fertile in litigation, it is the lawgiver, and 
not the inventor that is to blame. If Parliament, in its wisdom, 
cannot reconcile the interests of patentees and honest tradesmen 
but by robbing the former, they overlook the fundamental law in 
social economy, that no great improvement can be made in the 
arts of life, and no true reform in our institutions, without inter- 
fering with a variety of interests. 
To abolish intellectual rights inherent in man, and long recog- 
nised and enjoyed, and this, too, on the single ground of public con- 
venience, would be a retrograde step in legislation, of which history 
affords no example. As well might the surgeon propose to heal a 
rheumatic limb by amputation, or the philanthropist reform a 
criminal by his execution. 
In proposing to abolish patent rights, its promoters seem to have 
wholly overlooked the international interests that are at stake. If 
we have no patent law, we deprive every foreigner of his existing 
right to a British patent. Foreign governments may therefore adopt 
a policy of retaliation, and refuse to our countrymen the patent 
rights which they now so freely enjoy; or, what is more probable, 
they may hold out additional privileges to our ingenious artisans, 
and thus obtain the first fruits of their skill. Inventors will fol- 
low their inventions, and in the exodus to foreign countries, — to 
the United States, especially, with its cheap and judicious patent 
