GAGGING INVENTORS

Evening Star, Issue 20019, 9 November 1928, Page 2

GAGGING INVENTORS

; FIRMS THAT BUY THEIR SILENCE Do you know what would happen it you discovered a method oi producing, by artificial means, real diamonds at a cost much below the mined stones? No—you wouldn’t make a fortune (writes a patent agent). Diamonds would'tumble in price, and when they became common the demand would cease. Thousands of shareholders would ba ruined, the millions sunk in machinery lost, and a vast army thrown out of work.

The only way for you to make money from your discovery would be to accept a million or so not to exploit it. There would be no lack of offers! There is to-day a chemist experimenting in the production of diamonds, if he succeeds—and he has already gone farther than Moisson, the French chemist, who made diamonds, but at too great a cost—a syndicate will give him £250,000 to forget the formula', the materials, the heat ol the crucible, the pressure—everything. His diamonds must not come on the market.

If this suppression—the burial of a discovery—seems legitimate in the case of diamonds, there are thousands of other “burials” which cannot bo justified. Cannot you recall instances where something—a household commoditv possibly—appeared in the shops and then alter a time, although cheaper and better than the like commodity on sale before, it suddenly became unobtainable? Tradesmen said they wore sorry, but it was no longer made. That was quite true. The patent rights had been pur- 1 chased for the express purpose of taking it oft the market, and the purchasers, directly or indirectly, would be the makers of the commodity it rivalled. ■ .

The non-working of a patent is not illegal, although the comptroller has power, if ho considers a patent is not iffeiug properly worked, to break up the owner’s monopoly and issue a license for its manufacture and sale by any enterprising person who applies and brings the non-working to his notice. Such applications are rare, and many patents remain deliberately unworked. This burial of beneficial discoveries which would reduce prices is against public interest, and calls lor legislation. What if the proprietors of stage coaches bad formed a combine and bought* so that'it shouldn’t be worked, Stephenson’s invention of the steam engine? hi one case a young mail submitted an improvement to his employer. Ho was gi% - en £200; the patent was taken out in the employer’s, name, and lias never been worked.

There are firms who. although trade rivals, agree not to use certain patented improvements—those, for example, that would give longer life to a manufactured article. The reason is obvious. Our patent laws are fairly comprehensive, but the onus of proving to the comptroller, .by means of , a yearly return, that a patent is being properly worked, should be placed on the owner. If it isn’t it should become free property. ' It is no exaggeration to say that it such a rule were enforced the cost of living would fall considerably. 'The dog-in-the-manger policy of burying inventions has but one motive—the maintenance of big profits. This ..must end.