HOW TO SUCCEED AS AN INVENTOR
"One way to measure your success is by the earnestness with which your
competitors lie about you."--_Poor Richard, Jr.'s, Almanac._
[Illustration: UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C.]
HOW TO SUCCEED AS AN INVENTOR
SHOWING THE WONDERFUL POSSIBILITIES IN THE FIELD OF INVENTION; THE
DANGERS TO BE AVOIDED; THE INVENTIONS NEEDED; HOW TO PERFECT AND
DEVELOP NEW IDEAS TO THE MONEY MAKING STAGE
BY
GOODWIN B. SMITH
Registered Attorney, United States Patent Office, and Officially
Connected with a Number of Industrial Enterprises Founded on United
States Patents
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
INVENTORS AND INVESTORS CORPORATION
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY GOODWIN B. SMITH.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE.
CHAPTER I. Looking Forward 11
CHAPTER II. Looking Backward 14
CHAPTER III. Patents the Greatest Source of Wealth 21
CHAPTER IV. Successful Inventors 22
CHAPTER V. Field of Invention 27
CHAPTER VI. Growth of the Field of Invention 32
CHAPTER VII. Necessary Steps 38
CHAPTER VIII. Sounding the Market 48
CHAPTER IX. Practical Development 49
CHAPTER X. Lower Cost--Superior Merit 50
CHAPTER XI. Application for Patents, Etc.
Picture of U.S. Patent Office. 51
CHAPTER XII. Marketing 54
CHAPTER XIII. Discouragements and Dangers 56
CHAPTER XIV. Selling Patents 60
CHAPTER XV. Conclusion 62
CHAPTER XVI. Statistics of the Countries of the World 63
CHAPTER XVII. Mechanical Movements and
Explanation Thereof 65
Man's Value to Society
Failure is want of knowledge; success is knowing how.
Wealth is not in things of iron, wood and stone. WEALTH is the brain
that organizes the metal.
Pig iron is worth $20 per ton; Made into horse shoes, $90; into knife
blades, $200; into watch springs, $1000; that is, raw iron, $20, brain
power, $980.--Newell Dwight Hillis.
Dedicated to the
Grand Army of American Inventors
"How to Succeed as an Inventor"
PREFACE
The author of this book, after a number of years' experience in Patent
Causes, is constrained to enter a strong protest against the enormous
waste and loss attendant on methods at present pursued in regard to
patents. This loss and waste is largely due to a lack of business
knowledge necessary to properly market and develop inventions. History
shows that enormous profits can be earned from good, strong patents.
A careful perusal of the following pages will point out some of the
dangers to be avoided and the safe and reasonable course to be
pursued. Invention is a matter that requires the deepest study, and
should be approached, not in a haphazard, hit-or-miss fashion, but
rather in a receptive, studious, analytical manner. While the average
individual is fond of giving advice, no one enjoys accepting it. There
is no one, however, who so needs competent, unprejudiced advice as the
inventor.
A genius is more or less prejudiced in certain directions, and it has
been found that the prejudice oftentimes runs against the acceptance
of well-intentioned criticism.
"Our judgment is like our watches,--none go just alike, but each
believes his own."
It is to be hoped that this volume will be the means of saving, as
well as earning, money for the hosts of deserving American geniuses.
Philadelphia, March, 1909. THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER I.
LOOKING FORWARD
"Patience and the investment of time and labor for future results are
essential factors in every inventor's success."
The field of invention is closed to no one. The studious mechanic may
design and improve on the machine he operates. The day laborer, if
dissatisfied with his lot, may devise means for lessening the toil of
his class, and largely increase his earning capacity. The busy
housewife, not content with the drudgery incident to her household
cares, may devise a means or article which will lighten her task, and
prove a blessing to her sisters. The plodding clerk, without an iota
of mechanical knowledge, may perfect a system or an office appliance
which will prove of vast benefit to himself and his fellows. The
scientist may discover new forces and make new applications of old
principles which will make the world marvel,--and so on through the
whole category of crafts, occupations and professions.
If one of the old Kings of Israel, centuries ago, voiced the sentiment
that there was nothing new under the sun, do we not possess, at the
present time, a similar mental attitude, and are we not apt to say
with him that there appears to be "nothing new under the sun"?
Civilization begets new needs and wants; opportunities for new
invention are multiplying at a tremendous rate. In other words, where
an inventor, two centuries ago, would have had one hundred chances to
"make good," today the chances are multiplied many thousand-fold.
No avenue of business can open up the possibilities of such enormous
honors and fabulous money returns as a _real_ invention which is in
universal demand. The discoveries of the past form a record which is
not only glorious, but points the man of genius of today in an
unswerving manner to the possibilities which the future holds, and
which are vastly greater than anything which has gone before. Each age
finds the people convinced that human ingenuity has reached the summit
of achievement, but the future will find forces, mechanical principles
and combinations which will excite wonder, and prove to be of
incalculable benefit to mankind.
Our old friend Darius Green and his flying machine, that we heard
about when we were children, was not as great a fool as he was imputed
to be.
Witness at the present time the marvelous results attained by
inventors with air ships. We are proud of Wilbur and Orville Wright,
who at this writing have just broken all records for Aeroplanes, or
"machines heavier than air." It seems that in five or ten years from
now the navigation of the air will be a problem perfectly solved.
(Since writing the above, on Thursday, September 17th, Orville Wright,
at Fort Myer, Va., met with an accident to his machine, which resulted
in the death of Lieutenant Selfridge, of the U.S. Army, and severe
injuries to the inventor. The accident is said to have been due to the
breaking of one of the propellers.)
When you think that the first locomotives that were invented were
considered wonders if they made a speed of eight to ten miles per
hour, the chances are that within the next few years we will have
airships going through space at incredible rates of speed.
We might also, at this time, refer to the experiments of Count
Zeppelin and Santos-Dumont, and the American, Professor Baldwin, in
"dirigible balloons." This type of airships will undoubtedly be
superseded by the "Aeroplane," or the "Helicopter." The principal
inventors in this line are Henry Farman, the French inventor, and
Delagrange, the German. Wright Brothers hold the world's record, at
this time.
Little did Murdock (who erected, in 1792, while an engineer in
Cornwall, England, a little gasometer which produced gas enough to
light his house and office) think that in the year 1908 no house would
be considered as modern unless it was fully equipped with the gas for
lighting and heating which he discovered and brought to practical use.
It is also said that "while Murdock resided in Cornwall he made gas
from every substance he could think of, and had bladders filled with
it, with which, and his little steam carriage running on the road, he
used to astonish the people." No one is astonished at "little steam
carriages," or, in other words, automobiles, nowadays, one hundred and
sixteen years later.
Our grandparents, when they were young people, imagined that they were
living in the "Golden Age," and yet we today would consider their lack
of what we nowadays consider positive necessities a mighty primitive
and inconvenient manner in which to live. When the "wisest man,"
centuries ago, is chronicled as saying, "There is nothing new under
the sun," they lived in tents, rode camels, fought with bows and
arrows, sling shots and battering rams! While the Tower of Babel was
possibly the first "skyscraper," it did not contain express elevators,
hot and cold water, telephones, call boxes, yale locks, granolithic
floors, fire escapes, transom lifts, automatic sprinklers, stationary
wash stands, water closets, steam or hot water heat, electric and gas
lights, push buttons, sash weights, and so on ad infinitum. So you can
readily appreciate the marvelous strides the human race is making in
the way of material development, and all, or nearly all of which has
been due to the fertile brain and nimble wit of the inventors! Who
will have the temerity to say when and where this development will
stop, when Solomon, centuries ago, thought they had reached the limit?
What will be the next wonderful invention? For instance, the perfected
telephote? You, by stepping into a cabinet in Philadelphia, could have
your photograph taken and shown in Boston, all by and through an
electric wire! The Telephote may transmit light and color as the
Telephone does sound; why not a combination of the two, so you can see
your friend perfectly when you talk to him on the 'phone?
Our grandparents thought they were as comfortable as possible, and
they were, because they did not know any better. Do we know better? One
hundred years from now, possibly, _our_ great, great-grandchildren
will consider us as having lived in the "stone age." The field of
invention has no bars up,--you, all of us, are free to enter.
"The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and to
possess the aptitude and perseverance to attain it."