protecting the investment of capital in the working and development of a new invention from interference and competition till the investment becomes remunerative. A Patent is a Contract between the inventor and the Government representing the public at large.1 The consideration moving from the inventor is the production of a new and useful thing, and the giving to the public of a full knowledge thereof by means of a proper application for a patent, whereby the public is enabled to practice the invention when the patent expires. The consideration moving from the Government is the grant of an exclusive right for a limited time, and this grant the Government protects and enforces through its courts. It is not unusual for inventors to ask, "Why, when the "Government has given me an exclusive right, does it not protect me in that right at its own expense?" There are numerous and all satisfactory answers to this question. The Government does not protect any right of property in a citizen at its own expense. The law gives a man a right to have debts due him paid; but it does not collect those debts at Government expense. A practical answer to the question is, that, if the Government were to attempt to carry on, at its own cost, all suits for infringement that patentees should request, it would require such a number of courts and such a host of lawyers, that the whole national revenue would not suffice to pay them, and the whole patent system would break of its own weight. Still another answer is, that the Government would, in a great many such suits, find that the alleged inventor had not given the consideration demanded for his patent, in that his invention was not new; and thus the public would be unjustly taxed to pay 1 Ransom vs. N. Y., 1 Fisher's Pat. Cases, 252. the costs of suits which the patentees had no right to have brought. There are other answers of equal force, but these will suffice. The Government provides the machinery of courts to enforce the rights of inventors. This machinery can be set in motion by the patentee; and, by the provision of this machinery, the Government has done its whole duty in the premises. The method followed by these United States in the granting of patents, is probably the best in the world, and never ought to be materially changed. But one or two other countries make any examination at all into the novelty of an alleged invention presented as subjectmatter for a patent, and by none of them is that thorough and systematic examination made that is had here. The small sum of money paid by an applicant for a patent is not really in the nature of a fee: it is money paid to support trained experts kept to examine into the novelty. of alleged inventions, and to prevent inventors from going away with clearly invalid patents. Were it not for this governmental examination, no one would buy a patent, or risk any capital in working under it, except after a thorough and expensive search and vindication by a private professional expert. The Government really does a great amount of expert work for a small sum of money. That the examination made is not always perfect, is not surprising, when the vast number of applications acted on is taken into account, there being about twenty-one thousand applications per year. The wonder is, not that so many mistakes are made by the examiners of the Patent Office, but that they make so few. CHAPTER II. PATENTABLE SUBJECT-MATTER. HE statute provides: TH "That any person who has in"vented or discovered any new and useful art, "machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any 66 66 new and useful improvement thereof, not known or used "by others in this country, and not patented or described "in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, "before his invention or discovery thereof, and not in 'public use or on sale for more than two years prior to "his application, unless the same is proved to have been "abandoned, may, upon payment of the duty required by "law, and other due proceedings had, obtain a patent "therefor."1 The words "invented" and "discovered" are, for the purposes of the patent law, practically synonymous. 2 It may be observed, first, that an invention for which a patent is sought must be original with the applicant. Some countries, notably Great Britain, allow the first introducer of an invention to take a patent therefor, holding such an introducer to be the first inventor within the realm. Under the law of the United States, the applicant must be really an inventor, -the invention must be original with him. Although the statute specifies "any person," this is construed to permit joint inventors, no matter how many 1 Section 24, Act of July 8, 1870. 2 Morton vs. New-York Eye Infirmary, 2 Fisher's Pat. Cases, 321. in number, to apply for and take a patent. apply as well as adults. Minors can The patent law does not protect every new and useful invention or discovery: a discovery in mathematics, such as a new method of squaring a circle, or of getting the area of an irregular figure, is not a patentable invention; neither is an invention in finance, such as a new method of banking, nor an invention in the science of government, such as a new method or principle of laying taxes; and it was held by one really learned judge, that the art of producing insensibility in the human frame by means of the inhalation of etheric vapors, although the discovery of the anesthetic powers of ether was original with the patentees, is not a patentable invention.1 It is to be regretted, however, that the case referred to was not carried to the Supreme Court, that the principle therein laid down might have been forever confirmed or reversed. 66 * "A discovery of a new principle, force, or law, operating, or which can be made to operate, on matter, will not "entitle the discoverer to a patent. It is only when the 66 explorer has gone beyond the mere domain of discovery, "and has laid hold of the new principle, force, or law, "and connected it with some particular medium or me"chanical contrivance, by which, or through which, it acts 66 on the material world, that he can secure the exclusive "control of it under the patent laws. He then controls "his discovery through the means by which he has brought "it into practical action or their equivalent, and only "through them. It is then an invention, although it em“braces a discovery.' 1 Morton vs. New-York Eye Infirmary, 2 Fisher's Pat. Cases, 321. The inventions specified as patentable are, 1. An art or an improvement of an art; 2. A machine or an improvement of a machine; 3. A manufacture or an improvement of a manufacture; 4. A composition of matter or an improvement thereof. An Art, in the sense of the patent law, is nearly or quite the same thing as a process; a patent for an art is for a way or manner of doing something in distinction from tangible means made use of in the process. That which is substantially a single invention often presents subject-matter for patentability as an art, a machine, and a manufacture. For instance, there is, at this writing, a patent in existence, for an improvement pertaining to the manufacture of carwheels; the body of the wheel is cast of iron, and the tire of steel, both poured while molten into the same mold at the same time, being kept separate by an annular band of iron put into the matrix of the mold. In this case, the inventor had his choice to patent the process, the mold, or the wheel, all being new, or he might patent all three, thus covering an art, a machine, and a manufacture in what is really a single invention. He chose to patent the art, claiming the process of casting a wheel having a body of one kind or quality of metal and a tire of another kind or quality of metal, by pouring both metals into the same mold, at or about the same time, the two metals being kept apart while molten by a circumferential band placed in the mold. It may be remarked here, that, when a new principle in nature has been discovered, and a way devised of practically applying the principle, it is advisable, in a majority if not all cases, to claim the invention as a process or art, if it is susceptible of being so claimed; for then the use of any agencies involving the application of the principle will |