text:  According to the present patent laws it is more than questionable whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue his own discovery or whether he would not be arrested on the threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional England instead of despotic Russia it is doubtful if he could work out his discovery of the electrotype--we say _doubtful_; for as far as we can learn it seems hitherto judicially undecided whether the mere use of a patent not for sale or a lucrative object is such a use within the statute of James as would be an infringement of a patentee's rights