“As soon as a demand arises for any machine, or implement, or process, the means of satisfying that demand present themselves to very many persons at the same time, and it is very unfair, and very impolitic I think, that the person who gets first in the race to the Patent-office should have the means of preventing all others from competing with him in the development of that particular means of process.” Mr. Grove, Q.C., eminent in science as in law, hints at a remedy:— “I am speaking of classes of inventions which, if they may be called inventions at all, would inevitably follow the usual course of trade and the fair scope which every man should have for modifying or improving his commodity. I would not shut out the public from those things. I would exclude from Letters Patent those changes which would naturally follow in the ordinary uses of the machines. I would not prohibit a tradesman from exercising the same ordinary skill in using his machine as we should all be expected to exercise in anything which we happened to make or from changing its form.” Another question as naturally thrusts itself forward, How far have we benefited by having more Patents? Although the Act of 1852 has greatly multiplied the number, Mr. Woodcroft, the intelligent head of the Patent-office, gives the following answer:— “There has been no considerable increase of bonâ fide Patents compared with the old law?—No.” Very suggestive are the following observations of Mr. Grove, as showing which are the kinds of invention, so-called, that pay best, and how absurd, if people would reflect, they must consider our present mode of rewarding and stimulating invention:— “A Patent may be an extremely valuable invention; for instance, the manufacture of aluminium is of the utmost importance, but it was of very little trade value for a long time. When aluminium was first made what I may call a practical manufacture, it was of no value to any tradesman at all; it would take probably ten or twenty years before such a thing could have any approach to practical value. On the other hand, the most frivolous Patent—the turn of a lady’s hat, the cutting of a shirt-frill, or a new boot-heel—may be of very considerable value, from the number of bootmakers all over the country who would have to order it, every one of whom would pay an extremely trifling licence duty, and therefore the Patent would be a very good Patent to the patentee. In my judgment those are not good subjects for Patents, and there the opponent would have no interest equivalent to that of the patentee to meet him.