Rule as to one substantive

rules which might have the effect of multiplying their own fees, permitted the practice of crowding several inventions into one patent to go on to an extent most pernicious to inventors and the maintenance of property in inventions.

By a rule of the Commissioners " no warrant is to be granted for the sealing of any letters patent which invention. contain two or more distinct substantive inventions," so that if the Law Officer should have inadvertently given his certificate for a provisional specification containing more than one substantive invention, the inventor may be stopped at a later stage by the refusal of the warrant. It is greatly for the interest of the inventor to confine each patent to one invention; difficulties may occasionally arise in the administration of this rule, but if the provisional or complete specification be a proper document, the dependence or independence of the several matters will be at once apparent.

Amendment of title, &c.

Rule as to amendment of provisional spe

cification.

The act empowers the law officers to require any title or provisional specification to be amended, in case of its being too large or insufficient; so that there is power to limit each application to one substantive invention, and to carry out the wholesome rule of the Commissioners as to the specification. The smallness of the payment by the inventor at this first stage, and the supervision to which all fees are to be subject, will effectually remove the supposed justification of the practice hitherto permitted under the old system.

The Commissioners have issued a rule that " no amendment or alteration, at the instance of the applicant, will be allowed in a provisional specification after the same has been recorded except for the correction of clerical errors or of omissions made per incuriam." Such a rule, when the whole scope and object of the provisional specification is considered, may appear wholly unnecessary, and probably never

would have been made but for the circumstance that in a body of Rules and Instructions, issued about the 1st of October, the day on which the new law came into operation, under the sanction of the names of the Attorney and Solicitor-General, was contained a rule allowing the provisional specification to be altered from time to time at the instance of the applicant, a practice subversive of the new system. These rules and instructions were forthwith recalled and annulled, and the above rule issued; this rule should be a warning to inventors to have this first document, which will be the foundation of all future legal rights, carefully and considerately prepared.

in Bill.

The section (s. 8) defining the duties of the law Alteration officer at this stage was altered by the Committee of the House of Commons, in a manner which probably attracted little attention at the time, but which, if not properly guarded against, may in the course of events lead to a mutilation of the new system, and the continuance or revival of abuses intended to have been effectually removed. It is desirable, therefore, that attention should at once be directed to it. The section provides that "the provisional specification shall be referred to the law officer, who shall be at liberty to call to his aid such scientific or other person as he may think fit, and to cause to be paid to such person by the applicant such remuneration as the law officer shall appoint." The latter portion of this clause involves principles not contained in any of the previous Bills, and at variance with the general spirit of the measure, and of the evidence upon which the measure was founded. While the inability of the law officers, from the multiplicity of engagements and pressure of business, to find time for the adequate examination of the provisional specifications was admitted on all hands, the desirability of retaining their authority and assistance in an appellate and judicial capacity, and in cases of difficulty and opposition, was equally

Clause in original Bills.

admitted: it was proposed therefore in all the Bills, and the plan met with the approbation of almost all the witnesses examined on the point before the Select Committee of the House of Lords both on the Protection of Inventions and on the Patent Bills, to transfer the examination of the sufficiency of the provisional specifications to other persons, with an appeal to the law officer; the fee for such examination being paid out of the first payment of 51., according to a scale to be adjusted by the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls; the inventor, however, was to be subjected to no additional charge beyond the 57. at this first stage of his application; the examination was to be provided out of this first payment, in the same way as the advertisement and other general charges. It is essential to the proper administration of the new system that the provisional specifications should be dealt with on one uniform system, that the same mind should be brought to bear on the same classes of invention, and that the person authenticating the suffiConstruc- ciency of the provisional specification should be responsible for the accurate construction of the indexes to the provisional and complete specifications, as a guarantee of their accuracy. Further, as, in consequence of another alteration made probably inadvertently, the provisional specifications are to be printed on the expiration of the protection, the documents so certified will have great influence on and be subjected to the test of public opinion. It will also be important that the certificates conferring provisional protection should be issued with regularity, and without unnecessary delay. It was evident that such duties were wholly incompatible with the engagements of the law officers and the changing tenure of their offices, and ought not to be imposed on the law officers, and further, that the law officers must be relieved of the superintendence of the routine business of the patent system, by transferring it from the private chambers of the law

tion of

indexes.

officers of the three kingdoms to the office of the Commissioners. The portion of the section now under consideration throws a responsibility on the law officers hardly compatible with their other duties and the proper carrying out of the leading features of the

measure.

inventors.

But the alteration is open to other serious objec- Additional tions: the imposition on the inventor of any addi- tax on tional charge is contrary to the spirit of the act; and that additional charge is partial and uncertain. When will the law officer determine whether assistance is to be called in, and how will he determine the proper remuneration in each case? The law officer, out of a natural anxiety to save the pocket of the inventor, will either undertake duties which he cannot adequately perform, or he will decline them altogether, and subject the inventor to an additional tax, which would soon grow into a charge, either fixed or vary- Wrong in ing according to the number of words in the provi- principle sional specification and lines or letters on the drawings. The occasional charge contemplated by the act is wrong in principle; it is a tax on the author of an invention requiring superior knowledge, for that very superiority. It is to be hoped that any such charge will be uniform for every application, and that it will be paid as originally intended out of the first payment of £5 by the applicant.

The uncertainty attendant on such a charge would Further throw an additional duty on the inventor or his agent ; inventor. duty on the application having been made, no further act on the part of the inventor has to be performed until his notice of intention to proceed with the patent; the Commissioners have to take all intermediate proceedings.

tion, s. 9.

In lieu of the provisional specification, the appli- Complete cant for letters patent may deposit with his petition specificaand declaration a complete specification, and thereby obtain not only provisional protection without the

Two systems.

certificate of the Law Officer, but like powers and privileges as might have been conferred under letters patent if granted immediately. This provision, for which the public are indebted to the Master of the Rolls, may be regarded as the first step to requiring the complete specification to be deposited at the time of leaving the petition and declaration, a practice which exists, with some qualifications, in most countries but our own. Considerable differences of opinion exist, in reference to this and other questions involved in it, amongst inventors; it is extremely desirable that the complete specification should be enrolled as early as possible, and in the case of inventions provisionally protected for six months, it will be a question whether the complete specification should not be required to be enrolled immediately on the granting of the patent (a). There are, undoubtedly, a class of inventions requiring at least six months' trial and experience in the actual working before the details can be properly and definitively settled. The period within which the specification was required to be enrolled for England was two months; the time became extended to six months by reason of the delay supposed to exist in obtaining the patents for Scotland and Ireland, in order to prevent a publication in one country before the other.

The working of the two systems, the protection by the provisional and complete specification respectively, will require to be carefully watched, and measures must be adopted on the part of the Commissioners to prevent that which is the subject of a provisional specification being included in a complete specification; the rival claims may co-exist during the six months of provisional protection, but they ought to be adjusted on the granting of the patent;

(a) By a Rule of the Commissioners the final specification must be filed within

six months from the date of the application for the patent. Post 104.