I am D E Evans, often known as sinuhe in electronic phase space, and this is my home on the world wide web.
It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for
every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which
would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic
or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an
indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to
obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of
speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the
advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of
patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax on the
industry of the country, without contributing anything to the
real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit
of business with fears and apprehensions of unknown liability
lawsuits and vexatious accounting for profits made in good
faith.
—U.S. Supreme Court, Atlantic Works vs. Brady, 1882
© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 David Egan Evans.