Recent discussions on the abolition of patents for inventions in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands : $b Evidence, speeches, and papers in its favour
General
Recent discussions on the abolition of patents for inventions in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands : $b Evidence, speeches, and papers in its favour
Patents
Principles, which hitherto have not been admissible for Patents, would be
likewise excluded from rewards. There could be also no premiums for new
modes of manufacture, such as simpler or cheaper manufacture of materials
already known, and in the same manner manufacture of new articles
directly going into consumption, because, in the first case, the secret
use of the invention would present an equivalent, while in the latter
cases the start which the inventor has with regard to manufacturing, as
well as disposal, before and over his competitors, in most cases is more
than sufficient reward for the merit of having given mankind new means
of satisfying human enjoyments and necessities. It was consequently a
timely Convention between the States of the Zollverein, which already,
under date of 21st September, 1842, acknowledged the principle that the
granting of a Patent henceforth could establish no right to prohibit
either the import or the sale, nor the use of articles agreeing with
those patented, as far as articles of consumption are concerned, and
that a right of that nature was only applicable to machinery and tools
for manufacturers and artisans.[10] Accordingly, the granting of rewards
would have to be restricted to inventors of useful machinery and
tools, who do not use them solely in their own interest and keep their
construction a secret, but, on the contrary, make them accessible to
everybody by multiplication.
With such regulations as to Patent-right in force in Germany, it will be
observed that here, as in other countries, the great disadvantage arises
from this, that by the patenting of an invention its utilisation or trial
is prohibited to home industry, while the foreigner is quite at liberty
to make use of it and to bring the articles in question to market in the
country where the Patent exists.
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