The first point to be borne in mind with reference to the Patent-Laws is, that if we retain them at all they must be retained in their present form. The amendments admissible in their machinery are not important, and the recommendations of the Royal Commission some years ago were so slight that it has never been thought necessary to carry them into effect. What is the scheme of the Patent-Laws? A man discovers, or believes he discovers, a new process of accomplishing some useful result. He registers his supposed invention, and acquires a provisional right to its exclusive use for a definite number of years. After a time he finds some other person using his invention, and applies to the courts of law to prohibit him. The alleged infringer of the Patent says that the assumed discovery was no discovery at all, or that it was of no public benefit, or that he is not making use of it, and the questions arising on these issues are then tried. This is a condensed statement of the whole working of the law as it stands. No substitute for it can be recommended that will bear examination. It is sometimes said that an inventor should be required to prove the originality and utility of his invention at the time he makes his application to be registered. But who could examine such a claim? A court of law may, after much trouble and caution, declare that a claimant is entitled to a piece of land, because the claimant, by exercising rights of ownership over it, gives notice in a very palpable way to all other claimants of the property, though even then the court takes extreme pains that the rights of absent or infant persons may not be abridged. But, when a man claims an invention, by what possible process could notice of his claim be brought home to every man in the kingdom? Whoever will consider the matter will be forced to the conclusion that all the State can do is to tell an applicant that he shall be protected in the use of his invention provided he shall be able, whenever occasion arises, to establish its originality and utility against any one who may arise to contest them. The same considerations which negative the suggestion that a claimant could receive an indefeasible title, also negative the proposal that the claimant should be compensated by a money grant at the outset. If the originality of his claim cannot be proved, payment for it cannot be made, even if there existed at that incipient stage any means of determining its value.