But the most flagrant contradiction is that which results from
the enacting section of the law. Title IV, article 30, % 3,
reads: "If the patent relates to principles, methods, systems,
discoveries, theoretical or purely scientific conceptions,
without indicating their industrial applications, the patent is
void."
Now, what is a PRINCIPLE, a METHOD, a THEORETICAL CONCEPTION,
a SYSTEM? It is the especial fruit of genius, it is invention
in its purity, it is the idea, it is everything. The application
is the gross fact, nothing. Thus the law excludes from the
benefit of the patent the very thing which deserves it,--namely,
the idea; on the contrary, it grants a patent to the
application,--that is, to the material fact, to a pattern of the
idea, as Plato would have said. Therefore it is wrongly called a
PATENT FOR INVENTION; it should be called a PATENT FOR FIRST
OCCUPANCY.
In our day, if a man had invented arithmetic, algebra, or the
decimal system, he would have obtained no patent; but Bareme
would have had a right of property in his Computations.
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