Chapter 16

Even if such flagrant misuse of patents did not occur, the grip on our economic life which monopoly holds through patents would be a threat to our system of enterprise. The spirit and substance of free enterprise cannot exist in an environment where an independent businessman with an independent idea, or an inventor with a new discovery in a monopoly-ridden field, finds himself compelled either to submit to monopoly control or to be barred from the market. It is ironical but true that while a patent is supposed to …