Experience shows that the most profitable
patents are those which contain very little real invention, and are to a
superficial observer of little value."

Under the writer's personal observation has come many instances where
inventors have secured patents on improvements which to a casual
observer would appear insignificant, yet through shrewd management they
have been made to yield princely incomes. Among these one case worthy of
note is that of a young man in Pennsylvania who secured a patent on a
toy game which any person could have thought of, but few would have
considered worth protecting by letters patent. He was offered $1,000 for
the patent by one manufacturer at the outset which he refused, and
afterward he placed it on royalty with quite a number of large
manufacturers throughout the country. He receives but one cent on each
one manufactured, yet his income averages over $12,000 a year. Another
borrowed part of the money with which to obtain a patent on a railway
tie plate, which was bought by a corporation for $25,000, after having
manufactured it for two years on royalty. And many others, who have
realized from one to five thousand dollars on such slight improvements
on which few would have thought worth applying for a patent.

Patentees who would realize any considerable amount from their patents
must not sit down and expect the other fellow to make money out of their
inventions for them.

[Sidenote: Inventions as a Poor Man's Opportunity to Advance.]

Invention is sometimes called the "genius of the poor," and it is a
singular fact that there are a greater number of inventions made by men
and women of limited means than by those whose wealth, education, and
other advantages would seem to have especially fitted them for success
in a field dominated so completely by "brains." This may be explained in
a measure by the fact that people of moderate means are brought into
closer contact with the arts and manufactures, and are thus the first to
discover and improve their defects.

A self-made millionaire, recently speaking to the writer about patents,
said: "I know of no business or vocation requiring so small amount of
capital, and yielding such immense profits as that of invention.
Certainly no person of inventive genius can employ his time and
ingenuity to better or more profitable advantage than to invent
something that is really needed. Many poor men, through the art of
invention, have risen from povert