Economic analysis does not support the claim that economic growth and patenting are obviously and closely linked.  If, for example, patent activity is measured in relationship to the growth of the gross national product (GNP), in the twentieth century one finds a great discrepancy between the two.  Since 1930 the GNP has maintained a lead far in advance of the increase in patented inventions.  Evidence of this sort supports the conclusion of the distinguished economist Fritz Machlup in his study of the impact of the patent system: "No economist, on the basis of present knowledge, could possibly state with certainty that the patent system, as it now operates, confers a net benefit or a net loss on society." This observation, made in 1958, still holds true today.

                        Originally the seventeen-year monopoly was meant to protect inventors as they prepared their inventions for market.  Once the corporation gained control of patents, the monopoly was used to suppress any inventions that might harm its own products or enhance those of a rival.  Furthermore, corporations use their captive inventors to devise machines and processes that protect and perpetuate their own patented products and encroach upon those of competitors.  Social benefits are rarely the concerns of those involved in these maneuvers.

                        On the other hand, small firms and individual inventors, both of whom depend on limited monopoly for protection against large companies, would be harmed by the end of patenting.

                         The existence of a large, well-staffed laboratory does not necessarily mean that a firm is self-sufficient in its research needs.  The Du Pont Company, a recognized leader in industrial research, maintains extensive laboratories that have been held in high regard by its top officials.  In 1950, Du Pont president Crawford H.  Greenwalt announced: "I can say categorically that our present size and success have come about through new products and processes that have been developed in our laboratories." Economist W.  F.  Mueller, who studied the sources of Du Pont innovations during the thirty-year period from 1920 to 1950, came to the opposite conclusion.  He found that of twenty-five important new products and processes introduced by the company in that time only ten were based on inventions by Du Pont's research staff.  .  .  .  The rights to fifteen innovations produced outside the company were obtained from various firms and from independent inventors.

                        The DuPont Company figures are indicative of an important fact.  The independent inventor was not displaced by the organized research teams that swept into industry after the turn of the century.  A study of seventy of the most important inventions produced in the first half of the twentieth century found that more than half of these emerged from the work of independent inventors.  The list of their contributions is an impressive one and includes the automatic transmission, Bakelite, the ballpoint pen, Cellophane, the cyclotron, the gyro-compass, insulin, the jet engine, Kodachrome film, magnetic recording, power steering, the safety razor, xerography, the Wankel rotary-piston engine, and the zipper fastener.

                                                                                    Basalla [1988, 121-128].

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