* * * * * * * * * * [Illustration] Thorn smoked in silence. He had heard Sorensen's arguments before. Sorensen didn't mind discussing his battery in the abstract, but he was awfully close-mouthed when it came to talking about it in concrete terms. He would talk about batteries-in-general, but not about this-battery-in-particular. Not that Thorn blamed him in the least. Sorensen was absolutely correct in his statements about the state of the art of making voltaic cells. If Sorensen had something new--and Thorn was almost totally convinced that he did--then he was playing it smart by not trying to patent it. "Now then," Sorensen went on, "let's suppose that my battery is made up of lead and lead dioxide plates in a sulfuric acid solution, except that I've added a couple of trifling things and made a few small changes in the physical structure of the plates. I'm not saying that's what the battery is, mind you; I'm saying 'suppose'." "O.K., suppose," said Siegel. "Couldn't you patent it?" "What's to patent? The Pb-PbO_2-H_2SO_4 cell is about half as old as the United States Patent Office itself. Can't patent that. Copper oxide, maybe, as a depolarizer? Old hat; can't patent that. Laminated plates, maybe? Nope. Can't patent that, either." Siegel looked out at the hundred glowing light bulbs. "You mean you can't patent it, even if it works a hundred times better than an ordinary battery?" "Hell, man," Sorensen said, "you can't patent performance! You've got to patent something solid and concrete! Oh, I'll grant that a top-notch patent attorney might be able to get me some kind of patent on it, but I wouldn't trust its standing up in court if I had to try to quash an infringement. "Besides, even if I had an iron-bound patent, what good would it do me? Ever hear of a patent pool?" "No," said Siegel. "What's a patent pool?" "I'll give you an example. If all the manufacturers of a single product get together and agree to form a patent pool, it means that if one company buys a patent, all of them can use it. Say the automobile companies have one. That means that if you invent a radical new design for an engine--one, maybe that would save them millions of dollars--you'll be offered a few measly thousand for it. Why should they offer more? _Where else are you going to sell it?_ If one company gets it, they all get it. There's no competition, and if you refuse to sell it at all, they just wait a few years until the patent runs out and use it for free. That may take a little time, but a big industry has plenty of time. They have a longer life span than human beings." "North American Carbide & Metals," said Thorn quietly, "is not a member of any patent pool, Mr. Sorensen."