i88 3 .J 
Patent-Law Amendment . 
ii 
invention is valueless unless the inventor possesses these 
three properties ? As the Law stands it may safely be 
asserted that if a patent comes into extensive use by its 
seventh year the inventor may think himself fortunate. 
The only exceptions to this rule are when he is a capitalist, 
or has the ear of some capitalist or syndicate who may be 
willing to put the new process in operation. 
Such, I say, is the case as the Law now stands. But if 
the proviso which I am criticising be incorporated in the 
proposed new Adi the case of the patentee will be infinitely 
worse. It will then be impossible for a poor man, or for one 
who is not a man of business, to hold a patent beyond the 
fourth year. The manufacturers and others concerned will 
say, as they now say with reference to the third year’s stamp- 
duty, “ Don’t pay license to this troublesome fellow, but 
wait till his rights lapse.” They will be able to say this 
with more confidence, for it is often much easier to raise the 
£50 for the third year’s tax than to force an invention into 
use in the face of a conspiracy of negleCt. Consequently, 
if this extraordinary proposal becomes Law, it will be an 
adt of folly in anyone not a capitalist, or enjoying excep- 
tional facilities, to take out a British patent at all. If he 
devises anything useful, I should in that case recommend 
him to carry his idea to America, where he will meet with a 
more liberal, and I will venture to add a more honest, 
treatment. 
Summing up this part of the patent question, it may be 
said that to declare a patent at an end if not taken up within 
a certain time is to ensure that it will not be taken up. 
There is, however, one particular case in which the 
liability of a patent to determine, unless put in practice on 
the large scale, might be usefully, and I believe justly, in- 
troduced. It is well known that the original objeCt of 
patents was the introduction of new arts into these realms, 
and the improvement of those already therein existing. 
This becomes perfectly clear if we read over the preambles 
of some of the older patents. But as the Law now stands, 
and as it is now worked, it is made the instrument of keep- 
ing certain arts out of Britain. It is very common for aliens 
to take out a British patent, not with the intention of 
working it on British soil, but of preventing anyone else 
from so doing. They either refuse to grant licenses at all, 
or they demand royalties which are practically prohibitive. 
Now it would be prudent to decree that if an alien takes 
out a patent in Britain, and in some other country, and 
works it in such other country but not in Britain, his British 
