For years he had been amassing a fortune by a
process that was scarcely within the law.
For, when inventions threaten to render useless already existing
patents, necessitating the scrapping of millions of dollars' worth of
machinery, vested interests must be protected.
Thus, Brent and his partner, Herbert Balcom, had evolved a simple method
of protecting corporations against troublesome inventors and inventions.
They had formed their own corporation, International Patents,
Incorporated.
Their method was effective--though desperate. It was to suppress the
inventor and his labor. They bought the sole rights from the inventor,
promising him glittering royalties. The joker was that the invention was
suppressed. None were ever manufactured. Hence there were no royalties
and the corporations went on undisturbed while Brent and Balcom
collected huge retainers for the protection they afforded them.
Thus Brent Rock had come to be hated by scores of inventors defrauded in
this unequal conflict with big business.
The inventor looked about at the library, richly paneled in oak and
luxuriously furnished. Through a pair of folding-doors he could see the
dining-room and a conservatory beyond.
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