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it, in fact. Why should that not be done? It is for the benefit of the public that it should get the latest improvement. I can not see why the public should be asked to change the patent law to enable a competitor to get hold of the disused patent so he could have a basis on which to enter into competition with a pioneer of the in vention who has introduced an improved machine. Before any changes in the law are made, let the objectors cite instances where injustice has been worked on the public by the alleged sup pression of patents for other reasons than those which were due to improvements.
Far from eliciting instances of "in justice ... on the public by alleged suppression of patents," the Committee was told of many instances where inabil ity to suppress a patent covering an inferior alternative line of invention would have interfered with the proper development of a superior line of inven tion. Mr. H. Ward Leonard, an independ ent inventor, and an officer of the In ventors' Guild, explained this point by an illustration from his own line of in vention : 1 have invented a certain form and I am manufacturing it, and in order to make sure that I shall have that field protected I have, in this particular instance which I have in mind, invented what would be a pretty good alterna tive form, and more than one. ... I have created this line of invention and it has various ramifications which are alternative. It would be quite unfair to me, after developing the line that is commercial, and having selected the particular one of the several alternative forms that I think is the best suited — because I do not manufacture several other alternative forms, which manufacture would be quite commercial — that then my work should all go for naught, when a competitor comes along and at small royalty, and perhaps with very much greater capital and better selling facilities and better organization, takes the business all away from me; because it is quite conceivable to my mind, in this particular instance which I have in mind, that if I were forced to grant some concern in the electrical business that has $70,000,000 capital and an agent in every town in the coun try, if they were permitted to manufacture that
invention of mine in the shape of an alternative form at a trivial royalty to me, I would be wiped out in a very short time.
How "compulsory licenses" would work in a concrete instance, where the United States Navy Department had enlisted the inventive staff of the Lidgerwood Manufacturing Company in the solution of the problem of trans-ship ping coal in mid-ocean from a collier to a war-ship, was explained by the chief engineer of that company: The managers of the Lidgerwood Co. were opposed to this undertaking on the ground that I would spend a large amount of money for a limited market, and also with the probability that some other inventor would reap the re wards by inventing something a little simpler, a little cheaper, or a little better than my de vice. My answer to that was that I proposed to apply the same method that I had succeeded in before, namely, by studying out every possible new method by which this could be achieved and methods to obtain patents upon them, so that, as the art developed, I might be able to turn the inventions which proved the best so lution. . . . The advantage to the United States Gov ernment in being able to trans-ship coal in midocean cannot be reckoned in dollars and cents. It may mean the difference between winning or losing a naval engagement. . . . The proposed compulsory-license law wrould utterly destroy the remaining hope of making a profit. Among patents enumerated many are alternates and not used. None are as good as those employed, but any one of them will work. If we should get to a point where the Government were demanding a great many of these machines, and this bill became a law, the commercial pirate would act under this law and demand a license under some of my unused de vices, hence it would work a hardship to the manufacturer. . . .
How illusory is the proposal that the court will determine the royalty that the patent owner shall receive for a "compulsory license" that he is com pelled to grant appears from the testi mony of a leading printing press manu facturer :
