GAGGING INVENTORS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5368, 24 December 1928, Page 3

GAGGING INVENTORS.

FIRMS THAT BUY THEIR,SILENCE COST OF LIVING KEPT UP. Do you know what would- happen if you discovered a method of 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: be r.uined, 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 ex-» ploit 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 £25'0,000 to forget the formulae, the materials, the heat of the crucible, .the pressure —everything. His diamonds must not come on the market. BOONS THEY HAVE VANISHED. In this aupperssion—the burial of a discovery—seems legitimate in the case of diamonds, there are thousands of othei; “burials” which cannot be justified. Cannot you recall instances where something—a houaehold! commodity, possibly—Appeared in the shops, and then, after, a tipie, although cheaper and better than the like commodity on sale before, it suddenly became unobtainable ? Tradesmen said they were sorry, but it was no longer, made. That was quite true. The patent rights had been purchased for the express pur-, pose of taking it off the market, and the purchasers, directly or indirectly, would be the makers of the comr .modity it rivalled. This non-working of a patent is not illegal, although the comptroller has powers, if he considers a patent is not being properly worked, to break up the owner’s monopoly, and issue a J license for its manufacture and sale by any enterprising person who applies and brings the non-work-ing 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 for legislation. What if the' propraetors of stage coaches had formed a .combine,and bought, so that it shouldn’t be worked, Stephenson’s invention of the steam engine ? COMPANIES IN COLLUSION. In one case a young man submitted an improvement to his employer.' He was given £2OO ; the patent was taken out in the employer’s name, and has never been worked. I,t is no exaggeration to say that if 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.