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INTRODUCTION.

Respecting Monopolies, and the History of Patents for Inventions.

THE system of monopoly as exercised prior to the statute of 21 Ja. I. cap. 3, was not only a means of rewarding favourites of the Crown, and faithful servants of the public, but had also become a source of revenue to the Crown, arising from the rents sometimes reserved by the Letters Patent granting monopolies to individuals and companies, who, by having the sole privilege of making or vending any article granted to them, were enabled to obtain great advantage to themselves, and such monopolies by their abuse had become a serious grievance to the public.

These monopolies have been at various times the ground of complaint on the part of the public; and great inconvenience having been experienced from them, Queen Elizabeth, in order to prevent an act being brought into Parliament for that purpose, called in some of the most offensive grants. But the principle of granting such exclusive privileges, although perhaps in a limited degree, still continued in use until near the end of the reign of King James the First, notwithstanding that monarch, soon after his coming to

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the crown, had declared himself an enemy to them. The House of Commons however, at this period, gave great attention to the subject, and after much investigation, and many complaints of this and other abuses of the Prerogative, a bill passed that house in the 19th year of this reign, for the purpose of restraining monopolies, and which bill was ordered to be carried to the Lords with a special recommendation; but it was by them rejected.

In the Parliament which met 19th Feb. 21 Ja. I. the Commons, profiting by the union which for a short time seemed to subsist between the King and his new Parliament, lost no time in bringing in another bill for restraining monopolies, the former bill having been, as Hume says, " encouraged by the King, but had failed by the rupture between him and the Commons:" for although the King was stated to have recalled all Patents of Monopoly, yet the Commons were not satisfied without a declaratory law against them. But it does not appear that the King really intended to put an end to grants of this description, if the act had not passed; as many grants are recorded in this very year, and during the progress of the bill, of sole privilege for twenty-one years and other terms, not only for new inventions, but for matters which are not stated in the grants to be new inventions; some of them reserving rents to the Crown, and one in particular, extending the privilege to Scotland and Ireland; a practice not in use at the present day, as Patents of Invention for each of the three parts of the United Kingdom now pass under distinct seals.

The act was made a declaratory, rather than an enacting statute, as monopolies had at all times been considered contrary to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm, as well as to Magna Charta; and many had, at different times previous to the passing of this act, been set aside in the courts upon those grounds. They were also found by experience to be very prejudicial to an extension of commerce.

This bill was read a first time in the House of Commons, on the 24th Feb. and passed that house on the 13th March; when it was ordered "to be carried up to the House of Lords alone, by Mr. Glanvyle well attended, with a special recommendation from the House of Commons of the good attention thereof to it."

The fate of this bill was more fortunate than that of its precursor; as, after much consideration and delay, and several amendments by the Lords, and some conferences between them and the Commons, it passed the Upper House, and having received the Royal Assent on the 2d Nov. 1624, 22 Jac. 1. became the law of the land, upon which all subsequent patents for the sole use of inventions are grounded, and from this period our present law of patents may properly be said to com

mence.

It is not the object of this work to make a display of learning, by defining the word "Monopoly;" or to give an account of the different monopolies which have been practised in Greece and elsewhere, or even in England, prior to the Statute of James, or to give the opinion of Gro

tius, or other learned authors of antiquity upon the subject, as hath been done by the late essayist "on the Law of Patents for new Inventions." Suffice it to say, that Sir Edward Coke, in his 3 Inst. 181, gives the following definition of a monopoly." A monopoly is an institution or allowance by the King, by his grant, commission, or otherwise, to any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, of or for the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using of any thing, whereby any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, are sought to be restrained of any freedom or liberty that they had before, or hindered in their lawful trade;" which definition was certainly correct, according to the practice before the passing of the statute now in force upon that subject: but a more just definition of the word, according to the present state of the law, is given by Hawkins, in his Pleas of the Crown, I. 470, where he says, "A monopoly is an allowance by the King to any person, for the sole making, selling, &c. any thing, so that no person be restrained in what he had before, or in using his lawful trade."

The principle of the kind of monopolies under consideration, namely Patents for Inventions, is now pretty well understood; and it is generally allowed, that though it would be infinitely mischievous to the public, if useful discoveries were to be for ever locked up and made the property of private individuals, yet it is equally useful to the public, that the first inventor of such useful discoveries should have the benefit of them for a

limited time; for it is plain, that the public would have no benefit, that there could be no improvement in the manufactures of the country, unless the labour, the time, and the expense of ingenious men were applied to the purpose of new discoveries and improvements.

It is well known that the most useful discoveries that have been made in the arts and manufactures of the country have not been made by speculative and recluse philosophers in their closets; but by ingenious mechanics, practically acquainted with the subject matter of these discoveries. It therefore follows, that those persons whose only means of getting their subsistence is by the exercise of their own labour, skill, and ingenuity, must necessarily be prompted by an expectation of advantage to themselves, to spend much time and labour, and incur the expense of experiments in stepping out of the beaten track, and endeavouring to bring forward any great or essential improvement in the branch in which they are concerned. Such improvements frequently require not only ingenuity, but much thought, long attention, great labour, and repeated experiments; not only requiring labour, but attended with considerable expense. It could not therefore be expected, that the most ingenious men of this description should sacrifice their time and labour in seeking improvements which, although of great benefit to their country, would be ruinous to themselves, unless some mode was devised to secure to them an advantage from their invention.

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