Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/395

Rh shall have been amply repaid for the risk and expense to which he has been exposed, as well as for the talent he has exerted in completing it. But, the degrees of merit are so various, and the difficulties of legislating upon the subject so great, that it has been found almost impossible to frame a law which shall not, practically, be open to the most serious objections.

The difficulty of defending an English patent in any judicial trial, is very great; and the number of instances on record in which the defence has succeeded, are comparatively few. This circumstance has induced some manufacturers, no longer to regard a patent as a privilege by which a monopoly price may be secured: but they sell the patent article at such a price, as will merely produce the ordinary profits of capital; and thus secure to themselves the fabrication of it, because no competitors can derive a profit from invading a patent so exercised.

(434.) The law of Copyright, is, in some measure, allied to that of Patents; and it is curious to observe, that those species of property which require the highest talent, and the greatest cultivation,—which are, more than any other, the pure creations of mind, should have been the latest to be recognized by the state. Fortunately, the means of deciding on an infringement of property in regard to a literary production, are not very difficult; but the present laws are, in some cases, productive of considerable hardship, as well as of impediment to the advancement of knowledge.

(435.) Whilst discussing the general expediency of limitations and restrictions, it may be desirable to