Abstract
THE new Patents and Designs Act, which comes into force on November 1, represents a serious attempt to remedy some of the outstanding defects of the patent system of Great Britain. The importance of the Act at the present time is due to the close relation, too little understood by politicians and administrators, that exists between invention and unemployment. A good patent system promotes employment by fostering inventions of the ‘originative’ class, which create new demands and so absorb labour, while it has little effect, one way or the other, on inventions of the ‘intensive’ class, which cheapen the production of existing commodities and so tend to displace labour. A bad patent system, on the other hand, is a fetter on the limbs of industry and an instrument of blackmail.
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References
NATURE, 118, 121, July 25; 157, Aug. 1; 1925.
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The Patents and Designs Act, 1932. Nature 130, 641–642 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130641a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130641a0
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