y to reputation, fame, and honor, and
taken high places among noted men of all times.

Our moneyed kings may have enriched themselves by stock jobbing, but
this precarious procedure requires large capital, and the few enormous
fortunes accumulated are merely the monuments marking the graves of
thousands of foolhardy unfortunates caught in the vortex of
speculation."

CHAPTER III

SECURING CAPITAL

It is a curious but well demonstrated fact that people who have
inventive genius often lack the means to carry out their ideas. An
inventor who has ample means can secure his patent and proceed to turn
it into money without the necessity of being compelled to solicit
financial aid from anyone. This, unfortunately, is not generally the
case with inventors; indeed, many are often barely able to stand the
expense incident to taking out the patent. Patentees laboring under this
disadvantage are frequently tempted to part with a small interest in
their patents for the sake of securing sufficient funds to carry on the
promotion of their inventions and sale of the patent; and in doing this
the inexperienced patentee is apt to make the fatal mistake of assigning
to another an undivided interest in his invention.

[Sidenote: Danger in an Undivided Interest.]

Such an assignment may appear well enough on the face of it, and many
patentees have been misled, supposing that under the assignment the
proceeds from the patent should be divided _pro rata_, according to the
several interests. This, however, is not the case in such assignments,
and joint-ownership of a patent, or interest therein, does not of
itself, without an express agreement to that effect, make the parties
partners. They are merely tenants in common, each having the right to
separately make, use, or sell the invention so assigned without
liability to account to their co-owners for any part of the profits
derived from the invention through their own efforts.

In an assignment of an undivided interest, the assignee is afforded an
opportunity of manufacturing, using, and selling to others to be used
the article covered by the patent; also, to grant territorial grants,
such rights being unlimited by the terms of the assignment, and it is
actually of little consequence how small an interest is thus conveyed,
the assignee can proceed with the patent in much the same way as if he
were the sole owner; therefore, whenever it is intended that the
relation of co-partn