THE ENGLISH PATENTS OF MONOPOLY PART I.-POLITICAL HISTORY CHAPTER I TO THE CASE OF MONOPOLIES 1 NUMEROUS isolated attempts to grant patents of monopoly as a form of industrial encouragement were made on the continent before any similar action was taken in England. In 1467 a monopoly was granted for the manufacture and sale of paper in Berne and its jurisdictions. Two years later Johann von Speyer received an exclusive privilege of practising the trade of printing in Venice for five years. It is from Venice that our first instance of glasspatents, as well as of printing rights, comes. In 1507, the Council of Ten granted an exclusive privilege for twenty years for the introduction of a secret process of mirror-making. It was also by patent that this industry was established in France in 1551, when a ten-year monopoly was granted for the manufacture of mirror 1 In the absence of any careful investigation of the subject, for countries other than England, use must be made of occasional and perhaps not always trustworthy allusions in various secondary works. Kohler, Handbuch des deutschen Patentrechts, Mannheim, 1900, p. 21, quoting Zeitschrift für schweizerisches Recht, N. F. xv, pp. 6 ff. Klostermann, Das Patentgesetz für das deutsche Reich, Berlin, 1877, pp. 15, 16, quoting Waechter, Das Verlagsrecht, Stuttgart, 1857, Th. i, p. 8: "Ut per annos quinque proxime futuros nemo omnino sit qui velit, possit, valeat, audeatve exercere dictam artem imprimendorum librorum in hac inclyta civitate Venetiarum et districtu suo nisi ipse Mag. Johannes." Nesbit, Glass, London, 1878, p. 90. Nesbit gives no authority for this statement, but his book shows familiarity with original Italian documents. It has been suggested that the German glass-house, mentioned in 1507 by these Muranese, may have been the forerunner of one specially exempted in 1599 from a Flemish grant for Venice glass. Houdoy, Verreries à la façon de Venise : La fabrication flamande d'après des documents inédits. Paris, 1873. glass "according to the Venetian art." A curious and interesting example of an early patent is given by Cardan. He describes a machine, recently invented, which is so useful to millers, monasteries, convents, and nobles that the inventor devotes himself entirely to supplying their demands for the machine, for which he has an exclusive privilege from the emperor." There were, however, few places in Europe where the economic conditions favored the extensive development of a patent system in the sixteenth century. Adequate guaranty of monopoly over a wide industrial area is an essential prerequisite of success for such a system, and hence Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands offered no congenial field. Isolated industrial centres within these countries, whether autonomous or not, could not protect an inventor against infringement beyond their own borders, so that the advantages of an extended market were not sufficiently attractive to encourage the divulging of a secret of manufacture. There were better opportunities in France and England. The industrial progress of France was superior to that of England, but the political, social, and economic integration of the country had not gone as far. The French crown enjoyed more wealth and magnificence, but less 1 Renouard, Traité des brevets d'invention, Paris, 1844, pp. 79, 80: "Des lettrespatents du 13 Juin 1551 octroyent à Theseus Mutio, de Bologne, faculté, permission et privilège de seul, durant l'espace de dix ans, faire ou faire faire dans le royaume les verres, miroirs, canons et autres verreries à la façon de Venise, et iceux exposer ou faire exposer en vente dans le royaume, et ailleurs où bon lui semblera; à peine, contre les contrevenants de confiscation et d'amende arbitraire." 2 Cardanus, De Subtilitate, Nuremberg, 1550, p. 61: "Nam nunc cum pistores omnes ob utilitatem habeant: ille vero privilegium confectus sit a Cæsare ne quis habere possit praeter ejus consensum, vitam ex hac agit industria, et adeo brevi tempore sibi domum aedificavit. Neque enim pistores soli, sed collegia sacerdotum, et virginum Deo sacrarum, et nobiles quicunque familiam magnam alunt, ob egregiam utilitatem ne dicam necessitatem habent, plures etiam alii quos non tam utilitas quam ipsa rei admiratio incitavit, facere curavere." Cardan then goes on to give an explanation of the machine and adds a drawing of it. On Cardan's place in the development of experimental physics, see Hallam, Literature of Europe, i, pp. 400401, and the article in Larousse, Dictionnaire universel du xixe siècle. Cardan's allusion to this patent is noted by Fournier, Le Vieux-Neuf, 2d ed. 1877, i, p. 391, n. I, where, referring to the early protection of inventors in Germany, he states: "La propriété industrielle avait, au xvi° siècle, été réglée en Allemagne, au moyen de privilèges qu'on donnait, non pas comme en France ainsi qu'on le verra plus loin, à de grands seigneurs, donc les inventeurs n'étaient plus que les associés ou plutôt les protégés, mais qui étaient délivrés aux inventeurs eux-mêmes." |