hat; can’t patent that. Laminated plates, maybe? Nope. Can’t patent that, either.”

Siegel looked out at the hundred glowing light bulbs. “You mean you can’t patent it, even if it works a hundred times better than an ordinary battery?”

“Hell, man,” Sorensen said, “you can’t patent performance! You’ve got to patent something solid and concrete! Oh, I’ll grant that a top-notch patent attorney might be able to get me some kind of patent on it, but I wouldn’t trust its standing up in court if I had to try to quash an infringement.

“Besides, even if I had an iron-bound patent, what good would it do me? Ever hear of a patent pool?”

“No,” said Siegel. “What’s a patent pool?”

“I’ll give you an example. If all the manufacturers of a single product get together and agree to form a patent pool, it means that if one company buys a patent, all of them can use it. Say the automobile companies have one. That means that if you invent a radical new design for an engine—one, maybe that would save them millions of dollars—you’ll be offered a few measly thousand for it. Why should they offer more? Where else are you going to sell it? If one company gets it, they all get it. There’s no competition, and if you refuse to sell it at all, they just wait a few years until the patent runs out and use it for free. That may take a little time, but a big industry has plenty of time. They have a longer life span than human beings.”

“North American Carbide & Metals,” said Thorn quietly, “is not a member of any patent pool, Mr. Sorensen.”

“I know,” Sorensen said agreeably. “Battery patents are trickier than automotive machinery patents. That’s why I’m doing this my way. I’m not selling the gadget as such. I’m selling results. For one million dollars, tax paid, I will agree to show your company how to build a device that will turn out electric power at such-and-such a rate and that will have so-and-so characteristics, just like it says in the contract you read. I guarantee that it can be made at the price I quote. That’s all.”

He looked back out at the bank of light bulbs. They were still burning. They kept burning—

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“... They kept burning for ten solid hours,” said Thorn. “Then he went out and shut off his battery.”

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