CHAPTER 22

COMPARATIVE LEGAL PROTECTION AFFORDED TO MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PROPERTY

The law is very partial in protecting the rightful owner in possession of that which to produce requires but manual labor and very little preparation, but it gives no practical protection to the rightful owner in securing to him even a part of the benefits of his production, if the same is the result of the labors of the brain, after spending many years in hard and careful study in making it possible for him to accomplish it.

Dame Justice with unsheathed sword stands guard over the cellar of potatoes that took three months for the ox and his owner to produce, but she is entirely indifferent if an intelligent and educated engineer is robbed of the results of his labors of several years, after collecting a fee from him for doing that which it does not do, and which it ought to do freely. It is manifestly a peculiar logic, entirely at variance with the rules, that govern the ideas of equity.

The man who produces a field of corn that will feed a dozen cows is directly protected in the possession thereof by the paid officers of the law of the community, while the man who, by his exertions, lightens the burdens of millions of human beings has no claim upon the services of the community's enforcers of the law of property rights.