Trade secret

Baird hesitated, waiting for Mart to make a statement which could be interrupted and shouted down. But Mart remained silent.

“Will you tell our audience, then, exactly how you view your own present, controversial discoveries in the light of our present Patent System?”

“I will,” said Mart quietly, “if you will allow me to finish my statements without interrupting before I am through. If I am interrupted again, I will allow the audience to make its own decision as to why I am not permitted to state my case.”

Baird grew red in the face, and it looked as if he were going to explode. Just in time, he glanced at the ever-present cameras.

Mart let his breath out slowly. He had been right. The cameras were the one check that would keep Baird in line. The commentator’s bottled up rage would scarcely permit him to interrupt now.

Through thin lips and blazing eyes directed toward Mart, and momentarily out of range of the camera, he said. “Please continue — Dr. Nagle.”

Mart looked directly into the glistening, opaque eyes that were like some stupid inquisitors out of space. “We have built our nation,” he said slowly, “on the principle, among others, of just rewards for conscientious labor. The correctness of this principle can be determined quite easily by comparison of our society with those based on other principles which require that both the man and his labor belong to the community.

“In the beginning, it was easy to make our labor principles work. A man staked out a farm and produced his crops and traded with his neighbors. Afterwards, there came to be so many kinds of labor that it was difficult to evaluate one in terms of an other, with a just remuneration for all.

“Among the most difficult was the labor of a man who devised machines to lighten the burden of his neighbor and himself. How much should he be paid for such devising? Once he built and sold such a machine he had no reward for the days spent in thought and creation. When the secrets of the machine were revealed, any man could make it for his own.

“The man who invented did so because he loved that kind of labor, just as the farmer loves the earth. But even inventors must eat and provide for their families. How could the farmers as a group properly repay the inventor for his creation? In its attempt to provide justly for these men, society has made laws that grant limited monopolies to the inventor for the exploitation of his discovery. This is intended to be his reward and remuneration.

“In the exploitation of the resources of the land, we followed the same plan. A man was allowed the land which he staked out and put to use. He was allowed to mine and sell the minerals and oil found within it, for his own profit.

“Nowhere have we ever challenged the right to exploit and make a profit from that which a man discovers — except in one field. The intangible field of Man’s exploration of the principles and laws upon which the world of nature operates. A housewife can make a small fortune by devising a simplified method for cleaning out the family plumbing. The man who discovers the forces that hold together the building blocks of the Universe gets nothing.

“It has been said that the thrill of discovery is all the reward that such a man needs or wants. That is a fool’s answer. We live in a real world that demands that we be fed and clothed and housed adequately and that our families are well cared for, if we are to embark on the longest voyages which the mind of man can make.

“We have made it possible for housewives and garage mechanics to reap fortunes for a few weeks’ work in basement or shop. But we have not made it possible to reward the man who discovers a basic secret of the Universe.

“I have given myself for an example. I made a toy, a trivial gadget of little worth. For this, you paid me a substantial sum. But I also discovered what force it is that reaches out across the depths of space from planet to planet and from sun to sun. And it is demanded — literally demanded by Mr. Baird and others — that I give this for nothing!

“I have done this to show you what happens to scientists who try honestly to devote their talents to the good of all. What I cannot show is the amount of waste of intellectual ability that results from the failure of our Patent System to reward those who discover new Laws of Nature. Our great corporations would like to promote vast programs of research into the secrets of the Universe. But there is no way for you, the workers and stockholders in these companies, to profit directly from such research. There is no way for an individual to engage in a career of pure, basic research with the hope of profiting thereby, unless he turns maker of gimmicks, as I have done.