Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/97



John Farey, Esq. 10 August, 1831. would not be able to succeed in perfecting them, as wee from a conviction that the expence of attaining success would be greater than would be repaid by any advantage they could afterwards derive from making such machines, in open competition with every other mechanician who chose to copy after their model when perfected; for that perfection of design, proportion and execution in which Steam Coaches are now wanting, though very laborious and expensive of attainment, would not be grounds for exclusive privileges under the existing law of patents. The patents to the first inventors are the only ones which are professed to be recognized by law, though in effect they can scarcely ever be maintained at law. That is a very important point for the consideration of the Committee, and one which deserves great attention. As the law, of property in inventions now stands, when a new invention is advanced to such a stage that it may be considered to be tolerably perfect as an invention, no further exclusive privilege can be maintained to compensate for the skill, labour and expence which must be incurred to find out true proportions, dimensions, weights and strength which are essential to bring it to bear as a practical business. The law professes to give the whole to the first inventor, although he may have only laid the foundation on which another has raised the superstructure; and if, as usually happens, the claim of the first inventor is set aside, from technical informality in his title-deeds, and also when his term expires, the whole superstructure lapses to the public. For these reasons, those who are the most competent to the task of giving the finishing touches of practical utility to great inventions, are kept back by being aware that they shall not be repaid. Under such circumstances, a defect of judgment would be proved @ priori against any one who might commence such an unpromising pursuit, and that want of judgment which could permit a man to overlook the pecuniary considerations, would not be favourable to his success as a mechanician, in giving that precision of form and dimensions, and that practical utility, to an invention which