It has been well
said that all the world is wiser than any one man in it, and this free
interchange of our various experiences has tended greatly to the
advancement of our trade. But new departures, like the great invention
of Sir H. Bessemer, and important improvements like the basic process,
require the protection of patents for their development.
THE PATENT LAWS.
The subject of the patent laws is, therefore, of interest to us, as it
is to other manufacturers. You are aware that the Government has
introduced a bill for amending these laws. If that bill should pass,
it will effect several important changes. It will, in the first place,
enable a poor man to obtain protection for an invention at a small
cost; secondly, it will make it more difficult than at present for a
merely pretended invention to obtain the protection and prestige of a
patent; thirdly, it will promote the amalgamation of mutually
interdependent inventions by the clause which compels patentees to
grant licenses; and, lastly, it will enable the Government to enter
into treaties with other powers for the international protection of
inventions. If you should be of opinion that these are objects
deserving of your support, I hope that you will induce your
representatives in the House of Commons to do all that is in their
power to assist the Government in passing them into law.
GROWTH OF THE SIEMENS-MARTIN PROCESS.
The growth of the open hearth or what is known as the Siemens-Martin
process of making steel, during the interval from 1869 to the present
time, has been no less remarkable than that of the Bessemer process;
for though it has not attained the enormous dimensions of the latter,
it has risen from smaller beginnings.
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