This system, I am persuaded, would be found in practice much less expensive to the nation than the present system. So slight are the merits of the majority of Patents that the State would have comparatively little to pay; but the relief to manufacturers and the gain to commerce would be very great; for, however unprofitable a Patent is, it may be very effectual as a restraint and a burden. Such a system would sweep away every hindrance to the immediate enjoyment by every one of every invention, and to the combining with it every cognate improvement; a great emancipation and stimulus would at once be felt to operate. If other nations adhere to the antiquated Patent system which they have borrowed from us, we would be happily invested, in competition with them, with the immense advantage which the Swiss, for instance, enjoy over their rivals, that of being free from Patents, yet knowing the inventions of all other nations. But they would not adhere; on the contrary, they would either totally free themselves from the encumbrance, and leave us to pay the rewards, or (and this is more probable and would be more honourable) they would join in international arrangements, in virtue of which, every State contributing a little, inventors would receive large emolument, and trades would rejoice with them in the advent of an invention millennium, in the bliss of which workmen would share,—on whose interests, by preventing them from benefiting by use of the knowledge they acquire, Patents, I apprehend, act unfavourably. I am aware that to persuade Government and Parliament to adopt national grants would involve indefinite, perhaps long, postponement of the happy year of release. Therefore I repeat another proposition, also already submitted to you. It is this: To grant Patents much as heretofore (not resisting any reformation that may appear expedient); but to enact that, on the demand of any manufacturer, after three years of monopoly, any invention may be valued—not, of course, on the basis of the return which it might bring—but on that of its originality, the cost incurred in working it out, its advantage, &c., whereupon it shall be lawful for a Patent Board to extinguish the grant in any of the following circumstances: 1. If the patentee’s books (which he should be obliged to keep in all cases where his fees from any individual exceed £100 per annum) show that he has already received in fees the valuation price. 2. If manufacturers and others interested unitedly pay as much as will make the price up. 3. If the State pay the remainder of the price, purchasing the invention for the nation. And I would include a condition that any one may obtain exemption for himself or his firm, by paying, say, a tenth of the price.