CHAPTER 20

OLD AND COMMON TRICKS EMPLOYED TO "DO" AN INEXPERIENCED INVENTOR

Another method in vogue for appropriating other people's inventions, is to copy it, making some slight minor change in it, and defend it in court, if need be, on technicalities.

There are still other ways, by which inventors often lose their just dues, which is generally the fault of their own inexperience, as for instance, by giving exclusive manufacturing privileges to somebody without a reasonable guarantee, for the making of a certain quantity per stipulated period. The possessor of the privilege will then only have to make one in the whole life of the contract, and thereby rid himself of a competitive article from the market, at the inventor's expense.

Then there are various methods of avoiding the payment of royalties on all that's made, by getting them made at different places, unknown to the inventor, and by keeping two sets of books. If the invention forms the basis of a Stock Company, by allowing the inventor only a minority of the stock, and taking all of the earnings of the invention in large salaries by the controlling parties, thus leaving the inventor out in the cold.