“Have you known cases of patentees with a good Patent, and in which there has been what may be called a dishonest attempt to destroy it?—Yes, I have known both on a very large scale; for example, there was the great hot blast case. I was engaged in that from the beginning in the capacity of arbitrator; and in that great hot blast case the whole litigation arose from the ironmasters, who were making enormous sums of money, wishing to get rid of a very small Patent rate per ton, which had accumulated to an enormous sum in consequence of the success of the Patent. The expenses in the hot blast Patent case amounted, I should think, to more than £100,000.” In the celebrated capsule case, the expenses have been somewhere about half of that enormous sum. In another case, about three-quarters of it. How true, then, is the following, from _Chambers’ Cyclopædia_:— “When a Patent has been granted, if it is of such a nature as to lead to competition, infringements are almost matter of course; and the only mode of discovering and checking the infringement is so ineffective that inventors generally pass their lives in constant litigation, fighting a succession of imitators, who often have nothing to lose by defeat, and therefore entail all the greater burden on the legitimate manufacturer. It has been said that not more than three per cent. are remunerative. A Royal Commission has lately been engaged in inquiries as to the best mode of remunerating inventors and improving the law with reference to infringement; but it is doubtful how far the subject is capable of being put on a better footing, so many difficulties being inherent in it.” And how many of these pernicious Patents do honourable members think have been repealed? Allow me, as to this, to quote Mr. Grove— “... Very few Patents have been repealed, and, generally speaking, the patentee has been victorious.” And the Commissioners’ Report:— “Number of Patents repealed by _scire facias_ from 1617 to October, 1852 19 “Number of Patents repealed by _scire facias_ from October, 1852, to December, 1861 None.” A natural question suggests itself, Who is to get a Patent, since in many cases there is a plurality of almost simultaneous inventors? Listen to the words of Mr. Webster, Q.C., author of well-known books on Patent-Law:— “I have frequently had brought before me five or six Patents for the same thing within two or three years, or perhaps even within a year. I remember a remarkable case of a Patent for an improvement in railway wheels, where there were as many, I think, as six Patents almost within six months.” Sir W. Armstrong shows that sometimes the chief benefit of inventions goes to the wrong parties:—