THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY FOOTNOTES
CHAPTER 5 <fn10> <fn11>
[*145] I say the inventors, as a class, virtually offer to feed the people of England at one per centum upon existing prices, because I assume that each individual inventor asks, for his invention, not more than
one per centum of the agricultural wealth it produces. <fn12> [*148] I say the inventors offer to supply the people with manufactured commodities, at the rate of one per centum on existing prices,
because I assume, as before, that inventors would sell the use of their inventions, for one per centum of the wealth, which those inventions would create. <fn13> [*152-155] A day or two before handing
this chapter to the printer, my eye fell upon the following article, in the New York Tribune, of Sept. 15, 1854, which fairly illustrates the wretched economy of the imperfect protection afforded to inventors. It would
appear, from this article, that if the rights of inventors had been justly protected in 1824, the world would have had the benefit of an improved reaping machine, some twenty years before it did have it. If any man can tell how
many thousands of millions of dollars worth human labor would have been saved, taking the civilized world together, during those twenty years, by the use of such a machine, he will perhaps be able to form some tolerable
estimate of the net profit, which the world has realized, from its ignorance, meanness, and dishonesty, in practically denying that Mr. May had any right of property in his invention. And when the calculator shall have
ascertained how much clear gain the world has thus made, by keeping back, for twenty years, the use of the reaping machine, he will perhaps be able to make some conjectural computation, (if he can find figures in which to write
it,) of the aggregate loss it has suffered from keeping back, in like manner, the use of, and perhaps forever suppressing, thousands, and tens of thousands, of other important inventions, which it might have had the use of during
the same period, and for ages before, if its legislation had but adopted the principles of common honesty, instead of open knavery, towards inventors. The editor of the Tribune
has acquired a high reputation as a Political economist, by his unwearied advocacy of restrictions on trade, as the grand instrumentality for stimulating production. Is there no sarcasm on the political economy of the age, in the fact, that such a man should draw no more important inferences, from the incident he relates, than the merely personal one, that the Messrs.May, father and son, lost the chance of "an ample independence for them both;" and the additional one, that somebody ought to "write that most interesting and instructive of all unwritten books- the Romance and Reality of Invention," "not only as a deserved memento of world-acknowledged merit," due as well to living as to dead, but as a stimulant to the hearts and labors of a class existing every where around us?" Strange indeed is it, that it should never occur to him that there could be any more fitting "memento of acknowledged merit," nor any more proper or necessary "stimulant to the hearts and labors" of inventors, than a book, descriptive of their struggles and adversities. Yet, ludicrous, if not heartless and insulting, as are these inferences of the editor of the
Tribune, it should be mentioned, that he is probably in advance of most public men, both in his sympathies and principles, in behalf of inventors. I submit, lmowever, that it is not in entirely good taste for one, whose own
ideas are no farther advanced on this subject, to talk quite so contemptuously of those "boorish minds," who "refused to be convinced" by "demonstration," and who, in its infancy, could even "nickname" a valuable invention as
"Harvey's Folly," and "Harvey's Great Amazement."
THE VICISSITUDES OF INVENTORS.
"The private history of many inventions, if fully written out, would form a volume of abundant
dimensions. Its chapters would unfold a world of practical romance; the struggles of ingenious poverty, which no discouragement could paralyze; the undying perseverance of minds conscious of colossal strength; the hopes, the fears,
the bitter disappointments of commanding genius; the triumphs that have sometimnes crowned the labors of these patient toilers in their solitary work-shops, the brilliant recompense of mere luck or accident; the villany of
confidential friends- in fact a measureless catalogue of contingencies, which seem peculiar to inventors as a class. Authors- of books only- have had their
calamities collected and amplified with a touching pathos. The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties, gathered up into a volume too small to embody more than a meagre fraction of its heart depressing experiences, has fixed the attention and touched the sympathies of kindred minds, wherever its collected records have become knowmm. Some careful hand should also gather up the Vicissitudes of Inventors, not only as a deserved memento of world-acknowledged merit, due as well to living as to dead, but as a stimulant to the hearts and labors of a class existing everywhere around us, and enlarging as the circle of the arts and sciences extends.
Let us take a solitary instance, unknown to fame, but illustrative of the common difficulties which obstruct the path of poor and ingenious men. The whole world has become familiar with the great
American Reaper, which the London Exhibition first introduced to European observation. Yet as long ago as 1824, a young boy in Washington County, New York- Harvey May, by name- conceived the idea of a machine for similar purposes.
He tried his first experiment with shears, the blades of which were so curved as to present nearly the sa me angles of edge, from heel to point, while cutting. The following year he tried again, using a reel and sickle edge,
but returned to the vibrating edges. Continuing these trials, amid a world of difficulties and opposition, the sneers and ridicule of a community of boorish minds, he at last succeeded completely. His crudely-built machine- for no
one awarded him the cheap aid of sympathetic encouragement, much less practical mechanical help- extended into the grain to the right, and was mounted on the hind wheels of his father's lumber-wagon. With large wheels and simple
geering, a single horse drew the inventor and his brother on the machine, and it actually cut heavy rye at the rate of an acre an hour. Those who looked on and witnessed its marvellous performance, refused to ne convinced. The
science of demonstration was unknown to their vocabulary. His neighbors did condescend to grant that the whole affair was quite original, but complimented him by calling it 'Harvey's Folly.' Further trials, however, only
rendered the machine even more perfect, whereupon it received the further nickname of 'Harvey's Great Amazement.' Mr. May, in writing recently of this promising germ of what has since unfolded into a great industrial improvement,
says, with touching simplicity, that he intended taking out a patent, but 'My father refused to help me in this; for he said the patent laws were only calculated to draw men into ruinous lawsuits. I tried to get help from others,
but all refused to help me when they learned my father's views on the patent laws.' Thus, with the evidence of success before him, this youthful genius was compelled to see his great invention perish. Other inventors in the same
prolific field, have gathered in abundant harvests of gold from the profits of their
reapers. Had the over-cautious father stimulated, with judicious sympathy and advice, the genius of his promising son, the product would in all probability have been an ample indepemmdencc for them both. "We might
illustrate the same course of thought by a thousand other instances equally touching, but the suggestion is sufficient. Who will write that most interesting and instructive of all unwritten books- the Romance and Reality of
Invention?" <fn14> [*159] I have no special knowledge on the point mentined in the text, and only give my opinion as a matter of conjecture.