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
In this manner foreign industry is actually enjoying a preference, to the
detriment of the industry of that country in which the Patent is granted;
consequently even the patentee, through such foreign competition, loses
the intended reward partially. The example furnished by the Patent on
the manufacture of aniline colours in France illustrates the case.
On the whole, it is not to be denied that those advantages which the
Patent monopoly should guarantee are often not in harmony either with
the value or the importance of the patented invention; just as often
these advantages do not reach the author of the invention at all, but
flow into the pockets of such people as make it a business either to
purchase Patent-rights, and so work them for their own account, or in
partnership with the patentee, taking care to secure for themselves the
lion’s share. It is further proved by experience that insignificant and
most simple inventions have often brought extraordinary advantages to
the patentee, while the discoverers of important novelties (we instance
only Reissel, who introduced the screw as a motor in navigation), in
spite of Patent-rights, could not find gratitude nor reward for what they
accomplished.
We arrive, consequently, at the conclusion, that the partly imaginary
advantages of Patents are outweighed by the disadvantages attached, and
that, as the industrial condition of Switzerland exemplifies, no further
use of such means is any longer required in helping to elevate industry
in all its branches to a very high standard, or to keep pace with the
development of other countries in that direction.
[10] I cannot but think the patenting of machinery a great disadvantage
to any community. Yet if importing were allowed in spite of the Patent,
the exaction of heavy royalties, and of royalties graduated according
to work performed (which is the greatest source of evil), would be
impossible, and the disadvantage be neutralised.—R. A. M.
EXTRACTS FROM M. VERMEIRE.
After most of this _fasciculus_ is in type, I am favoured with a copy of
M. Vermeire’s “Le Libre Travail,” Brussels, 1864, from which I subjoin
three extracts.
The first, a noble passage quoted by that gentleman from M. Bastiat’s
“Harmonies Economiques:”—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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