National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1884-02-09
Our Patent System.

Our Patent System.
A bill has been introduced in congress
which proposes to reduce the life or duration
of patent TO seven years. The proposition
is ostensibly in tho interest Of the people as
against patent rights and monopolies, and is,
therefore, apt to receive more favorable con-
sideration than IL deserves. In fact, IL is q
mischievous proposition, and its adoption
would seriously cripple, II not wholly de-
stroy, the efficiency Of our patent laws.
Without claiming that our present patent
system is perfect, or that 1t should not be
amended in some particulars, it is undoubt-
odly true that IL has been productive, on the
whole, Of very valuable results, and has con-
tributed in n great degree TO tho material
development and progress of the country.
The principle Of patent laws is right. A
man has as much right to the results of tho
labor of his brain as no has to those Of the
labor of his hands. In both cases tho re-
suits arc property in which the man who has
produced it has an indefensible right to own
ership and protection. Often the results Of
brain labor arc moro valuable than those Of
hand labor, and correspondingly more worthy
of protection. This principle is recognized
in the copyright law, and is otherwise formu-
lated in the patent laws. 1t is unquestion-
ably right.
The patent laws have been q great stimulus
to tho inventive genius of the country. By
securing to inventors in advance for a term
of years the results of their labor, they
have offered a standing reward to the efforts
of educated talent and the struggles of i'm
poverished genius. Their value in this re-
gard is simply inestimablo, and can only be
Appropriated by rejecting how few of the
labor-saving and wealth-producing inven-
tions of the age, numbering Thousands, would
probably have been produced without the
hope of reward held out by the patent laws
The duration of patent under the present
law is seventeen years. This is not too long
Originally it was fourteen years, with pro.
NloiOu ia CGlldlh ChcCo lOl eoNon
years longer. Patents are now issued for SOW.
enteen years without the privilege Of re-
nowal. In England they are granted fol
twenty-one years. The proposition to reduce
the term of patent to seven years would be
fatal blow to the system. Often it takes fully
that length of time to introduce valuable
patent--to get it before the public and make
the people acquainted with its merits. This
process is generally difficult, and the first
few years in the life of patent are.apt to be
not only unremunerative, but very ex-
pensive, hard, and trying to the
| patentee. The reward comes later Perhaps
it would be safe to say that in the case o.
most valuable patents the first six or eight
years are occupied in introducing and push
ing them, the profit being mainly confined t.
the latter half of their term. And tits a mis-
take to assume that while the inventor o
owner of valuable patent is being bene
flied the public is being robbed or plum
dered. 1t is true tho people who buy o
use q patented article pay the owner
for the talent. time, labor aud money he ha
invested in producing it, just as they d
the author of a book whose work is protected
by copyright, but they get the benefit of the
invention. What would tho country DO to
day without the patented reapers, mowers
cultivators, and many other labor-savin
machines which have become so indis
pensable factor in modern farm
ing? 1t is true the inventors c
these machines have received liberal re
ward. and made handsome fortunes out c
them, but the people who use them, and I'll
country at large, have profted enormously
The principle of the patent laws is right, an
seventeen years is not too long for patent
run. To reduce the term to seven yea
would work great injury to the industri
interests of the country by almost destroyer
all incentive for new inventions.