The herald., 1894-04-29
cOMMoN-sKNsE LIMITATION WANTED

abused of late years, and through the
monopoly which they secure to the pat
entees, they have been Instrumental il
subjecting the people to the most OPP
pressive extortions. There are hundreds
of valuable inventions made in the last
twenty years, which have become afti
cles of common use and which the peo-
pie must have. 1t would be as impossi
BILE for the business man to get along
now without telephone in his office al
it would for him to dispatch his affairs
without the aid of the telegraph. Yet
the telephone is so protected by side
patents for improvements that, although
the main principle OF the useful device
has run its seventeen years of ity
against competition, the difficulty en-
oountered to avoid infringement of some
of these collateral patented improve
msnts is so great that the progress OF
introducing new machines is very allow.
One of the greatest difficulties encoun-
tered by those who have attempted to
interfere with the Bell monopoly is the
immense capital back OF it, all made
out of the people by tine extortioDate
charges IL was secured in making for
go many years. This enables the Bell
company to brighten of competition by
threatening suit for infringement of
some one Of its many patented and per-
haps inconssquentisl side devices.
In press machinery there has been the
most wonderful advances made in the
past quarter OF 9 century. The veteran
printer who recalls the presses in use
when he was youth sees tremendous
stride between the Washington or the
Franklin hand press of fifty years ago
and the Hoe psrfecting press of the pres
ent day. But If the difference between
the machines in point OF execution is
great. the difference in pries is infinitely
greater. The perfecting press OF the
present time that cssts as high as $4S,-
COO is btedly marvellous and won
derful piece of mechanism; but the
price, as related to the cost of its manu-
facture, is out of all proportion. And
this is due to the fact that in the
latest presses they are plastered all
over with patents upon which the
manufacturers have to pay too many
royalties. We bought a folding ma
chine for this Office several years ago.
The price was $5000 The machine
would occupy space of 4x5 on the floor,
and was about as high as a mans
breast. 1t could perhaps have been
turned out at the factory for few hun
dred dollars, but upon that small piece
Of machinery there we're no less than
fitasn patents, each of which was en-
titled tc round loyalty.
The bicycle has in the past few years
become fearfully prevalent. Its use is
increasing at a wonderful rats, aud the
sales throughout the United States must
be something enormous. For dispatc h
in errands, for convenience in speedily
going from one part of city to an
other, for quickly reaching ones place
Of business from suburban home, and
for numerous other purposes in which
celerity of communication is a necessity,
these substitutes OF the horse are indis-
pensabIe. They are probably manufae-
tured at coat of 500 or $25, yet by vir-
tue OF tAe monopoly which the patent
laws give them they are cold for four,
Eve and six times that amount.
The extortions praCticed upon the
public for indispensable inventions
would be more cheeriully borne if the
men out of whose brains these ingeni-
GUS and useful devices had bsen wrought
were the beneticiaries OF the high prices
exacted. But such is not the case once
in a hundred times. The only well au-
thenticated instance in which a genius
has received millions of profits from his
OWE invention was that OF Singer, who
frat gave us the sewing machine. Ool.
Colt, we bslieve, made a large fortune
out OF his murderous pistol, and go did
Morse out OF his great boon to mankind.
/ But theae are exceptions to the rule. 1t
ia very rare that man OF creative genius
/ combines the business ability necessary
/ to make his inventions profitable to
| himaeli. As a rule, therefore, ali the
! best and most useful inventions fall into
/ tn6 nhnuS OI bp5CulhtOIs hhu CaPltHllebSi
ana instead of the extortions wrung
from the public going to make the in
ventora rich, they add immensely to the
wealth of capitalists who know how to
make profit QUO OF the brains OF mon OF
genius.
We have no doubt that the patent
lave are greatly abused and We know
that In many instances the guarantee
they afford to invention has bsen di-
verted to ignoble purposes. But the
abuses that have grown up under their
protection have become so glarng and
oppressive to the public that congress
will soon be compelled to revise the
patent laws and 40 reform them that
they cannot be used as closk to the
extortioEats practices which the public
now endure.
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/ THR DOWNFALL OF A GREAT NAME.