263 
1883.] Patent-Right and Patent-Law. 
a British Patent ; or the alien aforesaid instructs a British 
Patent agent to apply for a Patent as a “ communication 
from abroad.” In neither case has the alien in question 
even the remotest intention of working the Patent granted 
him in the United Kingdom. His object is the very oppo- 
site, — to prevent it from being so worked. Hence if any 
English manufacturer applies for a license under the Patent 
he meets either with a direCt refusal or receives the offer of 
terms which are practically prohibitive. 
Referring to this abuse — for such I must venture to call 
it — the Society of Chemical Industry writes : — “ There are 
at this moment numerous Patents for the obtaining of arti- 
ficial colours, which Patents are held by large Continental 
manufacturers, who, not being compelled to grant licenses, 
continue to send their products into this country, and thus 
prevent their manufacture here.” 
There is a closely analogous case mentioned by the same 
Society, which may not ever have actually occurred, but 
which is still possible, and against which we ought to beware 
in time. An Englishman, holding a British Patent for any 
invention, might, if so disposed, remove his establishment to 
some foreign country in which he had also obtained a Patent, 
or in which Patent-right does not exist, and thus inflict great 
injury on his own country. Says the Society of Chemical 
Industry : — “We would suggest that if Neison, who obtained 
a Patent for applying hot instead of cold air to blast-furnaces, 
had formed a company with the objeCt of monopolising the 
whole of the iron trade, he could, if he had been specially 
interested in Continental coal and iron mines, have annihi- 
lated the immense capital at that time embarked in that 
industry in this country, and might have ruined large and 
important manufacturing districts.” 
Against these two evils, the former of which is aCtual and 
increasing, whilst the latter is by no means improbable, 
some precautions have been suggested. In the three abortive 
Bills for Patent Law Amendment which were brought for- 
ward under the administration of Lord Beaconsfield it was 
proposed that any Patent should become void if the patentee 
did not succeed in bringing it into use, on a practical scale, 
before the expiry of the third year. This proviso was much 
too sweeping. An inventor who is not at the same time a 
capitalist rarely succeeds in getting his invention taken up 
so early as the third year. Manufacturers hold back inten- 
tionally, in the hope that he may be unable to raise the £50 
required for the third year’s stamp-duty, and may thus 
forfeit his rights. Were it known that such a Patent would 
