issued each week. Probably
about one-fifth of these patentees obtain their patents with a definite
view of manufacturing their inventions, and the remainder obtain theirs
with a view of realizing from the sale of the rights to manufacture.

It may be said, as a general thing, there is more money in small
inventions than in larger ones, from the fact that they can be easily
manufactured anywhere with but little outlay of capital; they usually
fill a general need, and the profit derived from their manufacture is
large, besides the patent is more readily disposed of; while with larger
inventions it requires more money and ability in handling the patent,
and the invention must be unusually promising to justify the erection of
a plant costing thousands of dollars for its manufacture. However, when
large and complicated inventions do pay, they usually pay well.

[Sidenote: Business Capacity of the Inventor.]

It must be remembered that the actual cash value of a patent is not in
the patent itself, but in the sale or use of the monopoly it affords,
and the amount realized from any invention frequently depends upon the
business capacity of the inventor or his agents. Owing to his business
ability, one person may make a fortune out of an unpromising
improvement, while another, through bad or careless management, will
realize little or nothing from a brilliant invention.

Speaking along this line in an official report the chief examiner of the
Patent Office says: "A patent, if it is worth anything, when properly
managed, is worth and can easily be sold for from $1,000 to $50,000.
These remarks only apply to patents of ordinary or minor value. They do
not include such as the telegraph, the planing machine, and the rubber
patents, which are worth millions each. A few cases of the first kind
will better illustrate my meaning:

"A man obtained a patent for a slight improvement in straw cutters, took
a model of his invention through the Western States, and after a tour of
eight months returned with $40,000 in cash or its equivalent.

"Another inventor in about fifteen months made sales that brought him
$60,000, his invention being a machine to thrash and clean grain. A
third obtained a patent for a printing ink, and refused $50,000, and
finally sold it for about $60,000.

"These are ordinary cases of minor inventions embracing no very
considerable inventive powers and of which hundreds go out from the
Patent Office every year.