curity
control. The fact that he kept the method secret for 40 years, suggests
that his machinery[8] (Bessemer describes it as virtually automatic in
operation) represented an appreciation of coordinated design greatly in
advance of his time. His experience must have directly contributed to
his conception of his steel process not as a metallurgical trick but as
an industrial process; for when the time came, Bessemer patented his
discovery as a process rather than as a formula.

[7] _Sir Henry Bessemer, F.R.S., an autobiography_, London, 1905,
p. 332.

[8] _Ibid._, p. 59 ff.

In the light of subsequent developments, it is necessary to consider
Bessemer's attitude toward the patent privilege. He describes his
secret gold paint as an example of "what the public has had to pay for
not being able to give ... security to the inventor" in a situation
where the production of the material "could not be identified as having
been made by any particular form of mechanism."[9] The inability to
obtain a patent over the method of production meant that the disclosure
of his formula, necessary for patent specification, would openly invite
competitors, including the Germans, to evolve their own techniques.
Bessemer concludes:[10]

Had the invention been patented, it would have become public
property in fourteen years from the date of the patent, after which
period the public would have been able to buy bronze powder at its
present [_i.e._, _ca._ 1890] market price, viz. from two shillings
and three pence to two shillings and nine pence per pound. But this
important secret was kept for about thirty-five years and the
public had to pay excessively high prices for twenty-one years
longer than they would have done had the invention become public
property in fourteen years, as it would have been if patented. Even
this does not represent all the disadvantages resulting from secret
manufacture. While every detail of production was a profound
secret, there were no improvements made by the outside public in
any one of the machines employed during the whole thirty-five
years; whereas during the fourteen years, if the invention had been
patented, there would, in all probability have been many improved
machines invented and many novel features applied to totally
different manufactures.

[9] _Ibid._, p. 82.

[10] _Ibid._, p. 83.

While these wo