Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/179

Rh divided nor nationalized. At the first touch in any such attempt it vanishes.

Patents, copyrights and trademarks constitute an important class of intangible wealth. That these things can not be touched and physically measured does not exclude them from being properly considered as wealth. In fact the shares of corporations owning them, especially patents, are bought and sold upon a large scale. In some cases the corporation owns nothing but its patents and its organization. For example, the Minerals Separation Company, which owns patents of major importance in the art of metallurgy. In many cases the process claimed in the patents of that company enabled 90 per cent of the copper in ores to be extracted whereas previously it had been possible to get only 75 per cent.

More commonly, perhaps, patents are held by a corporation in conjunction with some natural resource. Thus, one of the most valuable mines of the United States is the Franklin mine of the New Jersey Zinc Co., but its unique ore was of relatively little value until the Wetherill process of magnetic separation was invented and made it possible to treat the ore with great efficiency. If the value of this mine were represented by 1 before the process, within a few years after the introduction of the process the value of the mine plus process was 5. Similarly there was known for many years to exist in Louisiana a deposit of brimstone, which owing to natural difficulties was unreachable by any method of mining although the best skill was exerted in the effort. By the invention and successful application of the Frasch process a phenomenally profitable business was developed. In the organization