LITIGATION
In the previous chapter 140 patents were summarized, but out of them it would not be possible to cull 140 new ideas. Besides the dearth of ideas, the question of priority and the fact of diffuse ownership were bound to give rise to a complicated mass of litigation.
The patent law has been one of the greatest accelerating factors in our modern civilization, because it has offered an adequate potential reward to individual effort. When inventions were few and widely differentiated, Governments were able to give adequate protection to the inventive class, there being in the nature of things little interference or clash of interests. However, after a hundred years of highly accelerated development, we have arrived at a point where it is obvious that either the patent idea or its method of operation has completely broken down. The historical situation is changed for another reason, namely, a patentee has to protect himself not only in his own country, but all over the world, and to conduct independent law-suits in each country.
Men nowadays work conscientiously and expend their energy in the development of ideas, only to learn later that these have already been the subject of patents, and that no new patent will be granted. The man who does this can attribute a part of his misfortune to his own fault, for the law presumes he has knowledge of precedent inventions. The individual who has received letters patent on an idea, however, and later finds that this brings him no reward when the matter is adjudicated in the courts, certainly deserves sympathy. He is in an entirely different position from the first man ; the Government has passed his invention as patentable, And if later the courts deprive him of the benefits definitely promised, someone has blundered. Every legal case in which the patents of one litigant are declared invalid is an indictment of the most serious nature against the system. Leaving out of account the victims of patent ' pirates ' unfortunately a large class there are numerous well intentioned people who have been deceived as to the value of the contract and covenant issued by the Government purporting to guarantee to them, their heirs and assigns, certain definite benefits and profits. The industrial world is alive to this breakdown, and a discussion of remedies has occupied the attention of serious reformers. The captains of industry have met this impasse in a measure by suppressed knowledge and secrecy in the arts. No better exposition of the iniquity of such secrecy can be made than that of James Douglas in the ' Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers,' Vol. XXXTX., 1907. This paper is so able, and deals with a subject of such wide economic interest, that it deserves much wider circulation than it has had. The suppression of knowledge and secrecy in the arts is grossly contrary to the public weal, and deteriorating to the individual. It threatens to stifle industrial development, because the incentive of the potential reward, to a large extent, is withdrawn. Sooner or later Govern ments must undertake to make their guarantees good. They must make the letters patent a contract as inviolable as the simple language on the face of it now would lead a sensible man to believe. The amount of money spent in patent litigation (including the expenses of the courts), and in the patent office of either the United States or Great Britain, is a heavy tax on industry, and it yields no economic result. The men who are most competent to judge in these cases are not called until the matter is before the courts, technical and scientific men of ability and training generally being conspicuous by their absence. The patent commissioner, or chief, is generally a politician, whose chief ambition is to -draw his salary with a minimum of effort. Examination by the patent office should be thoroughly scientific. As no expert examiner has perfect knowledge, the specification, as determined by the official examiner, before final sealing should be published in the recognized technical press covering the particular subject of the patent, announcing that unless valid objections are submitted within six months the patent shall hold good from the date of publication, and be a perfect protection against any possibility of the patent ever being the subject of a law-suit. This would fix 'knowledge at the time,' and prevent professional unearthing of old and abandoned ideas.
