Trade secret

VI.

They came in a stream after that. There were the bitter ones and the bewildered ones, and the senators listened in astonishment as the young researchers talked of the idiocy of legal definitions in scientific matters. Of invention and noninvention. Of combinations, defined by the legal mind. Of novelty and prior art. And the wonderful slip-of-the-wrist definitions of statutory and nonstatutory items. Of the mysterious “flash of genius” so essential to invention.

Some of the younger, less disciplined men poured out the unrestrained bitterness of long hours of research and development judged fruitless from the standpoint of patentability and resultant compensation.

But it wasn’t getting out, Mart observed. The reporters were taking down the words, but the bitterness wasn’t getting out to the minds of those who could vindicate him against the accusations that Baird and his kind had made. It was far easier for the press to quote a Dykstra and his comical, melodramatic interpretation than the sincere frustration of the researchers who were doing all they could to back Mart.

Thursday noon he said to Berk. “We’ve got to get it out where every one can buy it. Even if we win here in this little Committee and finally in Congress, we won’t have touched the problem of minds like Baird’s. That’s the real enemy.”

“What are you going to do?” said Berk.

“I’m going to offer to be interviewed on his program.”

Berk whistled. “Brother, that’s the equivalent of putting your head into the lion’s mouth clear down to your ankles. You know how they can murder you on those so-called interviews. You’re up there like a mounted insect with a pin stuck right through your middle. You don’t say a word. If you do, they shout you down with accusations of every sort. Baird’ll take the hide off you!”

“I don’t think so,” said Mart. “It’s pretty tough to tear off.”

Baird was more than delighted with the suggestion. Mart had the impression that the commentator could scarcely refrain from baring his teeth. Momentarily, he almost wished he had accepted Berk’s warning.

“I would like it to take place as soon as possible,” he said. “Before the completion of the hearings.”

“Tonight,” said Baird. “I’ll scrap my whole program for this evening and give you a chance to state your case to the whole country.”

Mart nodded. “I’ll meet you at the studio.”

He didn’t require any preparation. He knew exactly what he wanted to say. It was only a matter of keeping Baird from mangling his whole story. It was obvious that he was going to try.

He sat Mart at a bad angle, to begin with, so that his face was away from the cameras, and only Baird could make direct appeal to those who watched and listened. As soon as they were on the air, Mart shifted his chair so that he faced the camera squarely. Disconcerted, Baird was forced to shift or appear to be sitting behind Mart. He shifted.

He opened with a stream of talk that gave the audience a none too subtle view of the difficulties that television commentators endure in the course of their public service work. The impression was left that Dr. Martin Nagle was among the most difficult crosses that any commentator had to bear.

He said, “Dr. Nagle, will you tell our audience just what your concept of a satisfactory patent system is?”

“A patent system,” said Mart, “is intended to be a form of remuneration to a discoverer in return for the use of his work. In the case of —”

“Well, now, just a moment, Dr. Nagle. The reward offered by a patent is in the nature of a monopoly, and that is the crux of our present problem. You cannot say that it would be justifiable to grant a person a monopoly on just any kind of a discovery because he happened to be the first to discover it.”

“I did not use the word monopoly,” said Mart. “I said remuneration. In the case of —”

“Well, now, Dr. Nagle. You say remuneration. All right, we’ll use the word remuneration. But it is obvious at once that if you wish to place the magnitude of the remuneration in direct proportion to the magnitude of the discovery, there rapidly appears a point at which it is ridiculous to allow a single individual to control or realize the rewards of certain discoveries which will be of the utmost magnitude. Do you not agree that this is so, Dr. Nagle?”

Mart shrugged and smiled and said nothing. He glanced at the watch on his wrist, hoping he had not misestimated the time at his disposal.

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.

“But I do not wish to be a gadgeteer. Neither do thousands of others who are forced to do so because they can get a reward in no other way. Further than this, it is fundamentally impossible for us to make such a switch of profession and do it adequately. There are theoretical research minds, and there are engineer-type-thinkers. By their very nature, these are not interchangeable in the kinds of work that each is competent to perform. Each needs the other. If both are forced into one mold, then both suffer alike, as a result.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Mart saw it coming. It was almost as if Baird had drawn back his arm and were aiming a polished haft and gleaming point in his direction.

The television reporter leaned forward, his eyes shining with malice. He had timed it just right, Mart thought. For a moment he felt a little sorry for Baird. You always knew what a mind like Baird’s was going to do next. The rut it traveled in was old and very deep.

When he spoke now, Baird’s voice was low and modulated with his special kind of phony sincerity. “Suppose that the present hearings before the Congressional Committee were decided against you, Dr. Nagle. Suppose it is decided not to reward you with a monopoly on what has long been considered a Law of Nature so that you can profit therefrom. This is a time when your country needs these discoveries very badly, so the scientists tell us. Your country, which is perhaps the only one under the blue sky of Earth where you could have the freedom sufficient to make these discoveries. Will you give them to that country of yours freely, even if the decision is against you? Or will you bury them as you have threatened to do — until someone else who can equal your great genius comes along and rediscovers them? Which will you do, Dr. Nagle?”

Baird drew back, grinning triumphantly. Mart paused long enough to let him enjoy that triumph. Then he faced the cameras squarely again.

“I will give my work freely, of course,” he said. “What I have done has been merely to bring this tragic injustice to the attention of the nation, which is being harmed so irrevocably by it. I have done this because I believe in my fellow citizens. I believe they will no longer permit this injustice to continue — driving out of my profession those whose life work ought to be the uncovering of the great secrets of Nature.

“Rather, now that they know the truth, they will insist that justice be done. First, because it is their nature to be just. Second, to draw back to my profession the thousands of brilliant young minds that should not be forced into the making of gadgets for a living. I assure you, Mr. Baird, and you, my fellow citizens, that my discoveries will not remain very much longer as Trade Secrets.”

Afterwards, Mart contended that it was the television broadcast that swung the decision, but Berk was not sure. The following days saw a huge stack of testimony taken from scientists who told almost incredible stories of trying to get satisfaction from the existing Patent System.

Mart was called for final testimony and rebuttal, but he could only underline what had already been said. He was gratified, however, to observe that the attitude of the whole Committee was considerably different from that expressed by them on the first day of the hearings. He even felt that perhaps they understood — just a little — what he meant by declaring that Sir Isaac Newton should have been able to patent the Law of Gravity. And that he, Martin Nagle, should be allowed to patent the atom.

At the end of the final session, Senator Cogswell took his hand. “There’ll be some changes made,” he promised. “It may be rough going to get it done. We may have to call you back again — more than once. But in the end you people are going to get what you want. Generations of scientists to come are going to be grateful because you endured the personal sacrifice of staging this demonstration which brought to our attention the inadequacies of a system of which we were unjustly proud.”

It was not until they were back in New York clearing out their temporary offices for a move to a more reasonable environment that they saw Don Wolfe at any length. He came in the morning after their return and sat down without a word in a chair opposite the desk where Mart was examining a file of papers. Berk was packing a carton of reports on the other side of the room.

“I want in,” said Don Wolfe finally. “It was all over before the full crux of this thing hit me like a sandbag on the noggin. You shoved it through so fast that you almost put it over on me, too.”

“Come again?” said Mart.

“You put on a show and bribed them with antigravity and teleportation to change the whole Patent System, and not one of them guessed what you were really doing — what they were actually letting themselves in for.”

Mart glanced across the room toward Berk, his eyebrows slanted in a frown. “So? Now we have secret designs and untold motives?”

Wolfe nodded. “If you had lived in ancient Salem, they would no doubt have burned you for witchcraft. They were more clever at catching on to these things back in them days. But I’m not entirely sure it won’t happen yet. You have just delivered one of the deadliest rabbit punches ever given to the glorious age of scientific superstition, and I don’t think its high priests are going to let you go entirely unscratched.

“Dykstra is not the only one. He just happened to be in the minority at the Committee meetings. The others would have come if they had known you had a chance of winning. The universities are bulging with them. There are plenty, too, in the commercial labs. The AEC and the Bureau of Standards are salted liberally with them.”

Mart laughed and gave up the work he was trying to do. He leaned back and looked at Don Wolfe. “I’m afraid I haven’t the least idea what you are talking about, Don.”

“The old way was a good way because it was essentially designed to discourage new thinking. It encouraged a man to try to make a million by selling a new and patented writing tool that wouldn’t work. It encouraged file clerks to invent collar holders and tie clips. It got ten million tinkerers and garage mechanics to spend their week-ends thinking up dimestore ding-whizzits and mail order thingoolies so they could get enough to retire.

“And it kept nicely under its thumb the thousands of good brains that might have been engaged in new, basic thinking on how the Universe is put together — which is what its chief purpose came to be. Oh, not consciously, of course! You know that better than I. The human organism is far more devious than that. But that’s been the effect.

“Now it’s blown wide open. You meant to blow it open. You did it deliberately, knowing the full effect of what you were doing. And I almost missed it!

“I want a piece of it. I recognize that, compared to you guys, I’m a sort of subhuman moron, but I’m bright enough to see what’s going on. I can sweep floors and brush off desks and take care of laboratory equipment. So — have you got a place for me?”

Mart laughed again and turned to his partner who was chuckling softly. “I guess the firm of Nagle and Berkeley can always scare up room,” said Mart, “for a young man who exhibits such terrific powers of imagination!”