PUBLIC ATTITUDE TOWARDS HIM WHO STEALS PHYSICAL AND TO THE ONE WHO
STEALS MENTAL PROPERTY
Good people will justly gather up their coat-tails in holy horror,
when perchance they come in contact with a man convicted of highway
robbery, but when has a man been expelled from Church membership, or
from fashionable clubs, who has lost a patent suit by a clear case of
intentional infringement being proven against him?
At present it would seem that many inventors have a
special reason for deploring the decadence of the Eternal
Brimstone-Doctrine, as punishment for wrong-doing, especially
for the breaking of the Eighth and Tenth Commandments,
as its modern substitute of "Thou shalt not steal,
less-than-necessary-for-lawyers'-fees-to-absolve-you-and-a-reasonable-margin-of-profit,"
manifestly is broad enough to include the stealing of inventive
production.