No one in the banquet hall noticed the flicker of a smile that passed through the Crown Prince of France's wine-filled eyes.
What Joseph cared about most was not those tens of millions in patent licensing fees, but the long-term benefits over the next several decades, even the next century.
Allowing the countries within the Common Market to grant licenses to one another would first strengthen every government's recognition of the patent system.
Everyone had paid real gold and silver to buy patents, and they also had to rely on secondary licensing to other countries to recoup their costs. If anyone dared to ignore the patents and imitate them in secret, that would damage the interests of every country within the Common Market.
When that time came, France would not need to lift a hand; the other countries would join together to teach the rule-breaker a lesson.
As for someone secretly selling patents to "outsiders" like England or the United States?
Once discovered, France would lawfully revoke that country's patent license, and the licenses of its "downline" countries would all be invalidated along with it. The leaker would immediately be beaten to death by a pile of "downlines."
And since each country would only buy a few different patents, if similar technologies appeared outside, there would be no need to investigate to know who had leaked them.
Second, cross-licensing could greatly strengthen the binding of interests among the countries, thereby increasing the cohesion of the Common Market.
Since no one could do without anyone else's licenses, even if trade disputes arose within the Common Market, every country would prioritize negotiations to resolve them.
Lastly, France had, on the surface, made enormous concessions this time, and it stood at the very top of the patent licensing stream, so its leadership position