rcial pirates who set sail
upon the seas of all successful enterprises. The details, circumstances,
and technical questions are, of course, different from those relating
to other classes of inventions, and although there has been no cause
celebre concerning the phonograph and motion-picture patents, the
contention is as sharp and strenuous as it was in the cases relating to
electric lighting and heavy current technics.

Mr. Edison's storage battery and the poured cement house have not yet
reached the stage of great commercial enterprises, and therefore have
not yet risen to the dignity of patent litigation. If, however, the
experience of past years is any criterion, there will probably come a
time in the future when, despite present widely expressed incredulity
and contemptuous sniffs of unbelief in the practicability of his ideas
in these directions, ultimate success will give rise to a series of
hotly contested legal conflicts such as have signalized the practical
outcome of his past efforts in other lines.

When it is considered what Edison has done, what the sum and substance
of his contributions to human comfort and happiness have been, the
results, as measured by legal success, have been pitiable. With the
exception of the favorable decision on the incandescent lamp filament
patent, coming so late, however, that but little practical good was
accomplished, the reader may search the law-books in vain for a single
decision squarely and fairly sustaining a single patent of first order.
There never was a monopoly in incandescent electric lighting, and even
from the earliest days competitors and infringers were in the field
reaping the benefits, and though defeated in the end, paying not a cent
of tribute. The market was practically as free and open as if no patent
existed. There never was a monopoly in the phonograph; practically all
of the vital inventions were deliberately appropriated by others, and
the inventor was laughed at for his pains. Even so beautiful a process
as that for the duplication of phonograph records was solemnly held by
a Federal judge as lacking invention--as being obvious to any one. The
mere fact that Edison spent years of his life in developing that process
counted for nothing.

The invention of the three-wire system, which, when it was first
announced as saving over 60 per cent. of copper in the circuits, was
regarded as an utter impossibility--this patent was likewise held by
a Federal ju