Trade secret

“What I want is a congressional investigation — of me, and of the whole Patent System. I believe that Baird could bring it off. He’s just the kind to shake an old bone until everybody is so tired they will agree to anything he says. But he needs to be pushed into it. You’re the man to do the pushing.”

“What could I do?” said Wolfe.

“Simply tell him your story. You offered me a generous deal on the rocket toy principle, but I refused to turn it over. Tell him the aviation industry has got to have it for vital national defense work. Wave the flag. He’ll go for that. Lay it on thick enough and he’ll be braying at congressional doors the same day.”

“He might do it too well.”

“We’ll take that chance. Will you do it? There will be a little pay, but not much.”

“Never mind the pay — if this is the crusade I think it is.”

“Thanks. Let me hear from you as soon as you contact Baird.”

Mart and Berk expected results from Baird’s broadcast. By noon these began to appear in abundance. There were telegrams from Mart’s former students, who were now respected engineers and physicists in commercial laboratories throughout the country. His colleagues on a half dozen teaching staffs sent messages also. And strangers whom he had never known, but whose signatures were over the names of some of the largest concerns in the country, added their observations.

Doris, their secretary in the outer office, had long since been given instructions that they were out to all phone callers except their families and important business associates. In Mart’s office he and Berk sorted the messages one by one, dividing them into two piles.

“Maybe we need a third pile,” said Berk. “Here’ a fellow who wants to know if we think we can help him get a patent on his super-cling shoes for cats, which can’t be kicked off.”

“He doesn’t need our help,” said Mart. “The Patent Office would grant that without a second thought! I got one like that, too. Some guy wants to patent a house suspended like a bird cage. Its rocking motion is supposed to cure neuroses of people who were never properly rocked in a cradle. But most of these offer us a pat on the back and wish us luck. How about your batch?”

Berk nodded. “Same here. Some of these guys are really bitter. Not the crackpots. Engineers mostly. The physicists seem a little less enthusiastic about what we’re doing. Most of them sound a little bewildered.”

“They would,” said Mart. “All their lives they have accepted the fact that the Patent System has no bearing on their work, so they aren’t even sure of what they ought to expect of it. When the bell finally rings and they catch on to what they’ve been missing, there’ll be a reaction!”

Don Wolfe called on the phone later in the day. “Baird ate it up,” he said. “It was just what he was looking for. It will be on his broadcast tonight. But that guy’s a first-class paranoid. It looks to me like it would be a good idea to get a bodyguard until this blows over. He’s, quote, out to make a public example of the intellectual selfishness that has hamstrung our nation for the past two decades, unquote. He’s just plain nuts.”

“That’s about normal for the type,” said Mart. “I think we can take care of ourselves. If you want me to, I’ll fix up some letters now. There shouldn’t be any trouble about finding a new job. I hope you’ll be available for testimony if this investigation goes through.”

“I will, don’t worry. And I won’t need the letters. I managed to pick up something on my own this afternoon. Let me know when I can help out the good work again.”

Don Wolfe had not exaggerated. As Mart listened to the television reporter in the evening he felt a little sick. Baird’s viciousness emphasized anew the magnitude of the thing they were combating. The Patent System was only a small fragment, he thought. Roots of the same malignancy penetrated deeply into every division of society.

But Baird succeeded, at least, in making the point Mart wanted him to make. He demanded Congress appoint a committee to investigate the rights of an individual to withhold knowledge of vital concern to the welfare of the nation, even though he couldn’t patent his discoveries.

“We know this information exists,” he said. “It exists in the mind of one man. Can we afford to let this man monopolize and bury these vital principles beyond the reach of the nation? I submit that this information is comparable to the resources of coal, oil, and atomic energy. We would not think of allowing a single individual to bar access to any of these. I call upon the Congress of the United States to investigate this intolerable situation and pass legislation at once which will correct it.”

The effectiveness of Baird’s appeal was demonstrated to Mart the following morning as he stepped into a taxi. The moment he was seated, the doors on either side opened, and two neatly dressed men sat down beside him. He felt the points of guns pressed against him on either side.