Third payment and there is no appeal. This was the case under the old system, and experience has not shown any practical inconvenience or injustice. The application for the patent having been adverWarrant. tised, and the opposition (if any) disposed of, the law officer will direct the warrant to be prepared for the sealing of the patent. The warrant is to be sealed with the seal of the Commissioners, and to bear a stamp of £5. Issuing of Patent dated from day of application. Filing the Specification within The warrant having been sealed, the Commissioners, when required by the applicant, will cause letters patent to be prepared and passed under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, extending to the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, which will bear date as of the day of the application, except the law officer or Lord Chancellor shall otherwise order. The permitting letters patent to bear date from the day of the application is one of the leading features of the new system; that day becomes the commencement of right under the patent, and no publication or use of the invention subsequent to that day will have prejudiced the grant. Under the old system, letters patent bore date the day of sealing, or a day not earlier than the delivery of the privy seal bill or warrant into Chancery for the making of the patent, and the term of fourteen years, the longest which could be granted under the statute of James, began from that day inclusive. Now, however, the term will be reckoned from the day of the application inclusive. Inventors, therefore, who make application for a patent before their invention is adequately matured for working, will have the term of fourteen years practically shortened by so much of the six months as is employed in perfecting the invention. The last act of the patentee is the preparation of the complete specification, and the filing the same in such office of the Court of Chancery as the Lord Chan- six months. cellor shall direct, accompanied by an extra copy of any drawings referred to in the specification, and a stamp of £5 as a further and the final payment. By a rule of the Commissioners the complete specification must be filed within six months of the application for a patent. The Commissioners have issued some regulations Size of as to the size of the paper or parchment in which drawings. the specifications are to be written, and as to the size of the accompanying sheets of drawings (e), but there are no acknowledgment or enrolment fees or stamp duties requiring the number of the words and letters on the drawings to be counted, as formerly. of draw Under the old system the patentee had to provide or pay for two copies of the drawings, the one annexed to his specification, the other to be annexed to the roll on which his specification was transcribed, in a hand scarcely legible by the public. The extra copy Extra copy of the drawings now required to be furnished with the ings. specification was intended to be used for the purpose of publication, or for consultation by the public, a paper copy of the written part of the specification being made in the office of the Commissioners for the same purposes, so that the signed and sealed specification would be preserved as an original record, and never consulted except on special occasions, under the order of the Commissioners or their officers. Patent The Lord Chancellor has directed the Great Seal One Patent Office to be the office for the filing of specifi- Office. cations, and to be combined with the Office of the Commissioners, so that there is now but one office for all matters connected with patents, specifications, and disclaimers. All specifications are to be printed, published, and Specificasold at reasonable prices; the money heretofore paid printed. (e) See Rules of Commissioners, post 102. tions to be s. 30. tions for the public, s. 29. by inventors for the engrossing and enrolment of their specifications in England, Scotland, and Ireland, would have paid for their publication many times over. The act provides for the printing of the provisional as well as of the complete specifications; in this respect it differs from the Bill of 1851, and will occasion a great and unnecessary expense, and one not contemplated when the Schedule of Fees was settled in the preceding session. If proper regulations were made, requiring all drawings to be on sheets of certain sizes, and executed at once on stone or zinc, so that there might be one expense to the inventor and the public, the filed and deposited and published copies might come from the same original, and the specifications might be published and issued without any delay. Copies of The Commissioners are to cause true copies of all Specifica- specifications to be open to the inspection of the public, at the office of the Commissioners, and at an office in Edinburgh and Dublin. According to the original intention of the clause, it was conceived that the copies so open to the public would be the printed copies; it has recently been urged that printed copies would not be true copies; that the scale and colouring of the drawings would not be preserved in the engraved or published copies. The arrangement suggested above as to filing impressions from stone or metal, printed in colours, will at once obviate this difficulty; but whatever effect may be given to a quibble about terms, it will not be tolerated that the spirit of the act should be violated to such an extent as to impose upon inventors the tax of providing two distinct copies of drawings for the benefit of the public in Edinburgh and Dublin, when printed copies are so much more convenient, and will afford all the information that the public can reasonably require. Payments at end of The letters patent, when granted, will expire at the years, s. 19. expiration of three and seven years respectively, un- 3rd and 7th less before the expiration of the said three and seven years stamps of the value of £50 and £100 respectively be affixed to the letters patent, and inventors must bear in mind, that in reckoning the term of a patent or other grant as against the public, the day on which the grant commences, that is, the day of the application for the grant, is reckoned inclusively, so that a patent applied for on and sealed as of the 1st of October, 1852, will expire on the 30th of September, 1855, unless the £50 stamp be affixed on or before that day; or on the 30th September, 1859, unless the £100 stamp be affixed on or before that day; or on the 30th of September, 1866, by the natural effluxion of the term, unless extended on the recommendation of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. This periodical payment is new; and does not, it Periodical is believed, exist in any country; small annual pay- payment. ments exist in some countries, but their continual recurrence is objectionable. The period of six months of protection at a cost of £5 will enable the inventor to make inquiries as to the novelty and utility of his invention; the periods of three and seven years respectively will have afforded the opportunity for investigation and experience decisive of the merits of most inventions; if the invention be profitable, or if the capital embarked in carrying out the invention be large, the further payments will be a reasonable contribution to the public purse for the continued subsistence of the exclusive privileges under the patent; and the further payments will operate in all cases as an inducement to allow the patent to lapse, and thereby leave the invention to be adopted or improved upon by the public. The existence of patents for inventions of no prac- Effect of tical utility, with a considerable portion of their term periodical unexpired, is one of the difficulties to be contended payments. Justice of ments. with; such inventions remain in abeyance until some further improvement has rendered the original invention useful and commercially profitable, and then the person to whose skill and capital the public are really indebted for a successful invention is frequently subjected to legal proceedings under the patent which he has made profitable. The periodical payment will operate to prevent much of this species of litigation, inasmuch as few patents will be kept alive which are not yielding some return, and each improver upon such expired patents will only have to take care to limit his claim to the precise improvement which he has made. The system of periodical payments seems well such pay- adapted to the justice and peculiar circumstances of the case. The cost of the patent under the new system was fixed at what appeared to be necessary for the general expenses of the requisite establishment and the printing of the specifications; thus the inventor would pay no more for the patent than its cost; the subsequent payments are optional, and may be regarded as a tax on a successful adventure. Indexes,&c. s. 32. proprietors, s. 34. The Act provides (s. 32) for the making and maintaining of proper indexes, both of names and subjects; this will be essential to the new system, and will, if properly executed, present a history of the progress of invention in the arts and manufactures. Such in dexes will materially assist the inventor in ascertaining what has been done before, and thereby enable him to confine his claim to the precise feature contributing to the success of the invention; they are to extend back to all specifications. Register of The Act also provides (s. 34) for registers of patents patents and and specifications, disclaimers and memoranda of alterations, and for a register of proprietors, that is, of persons and others interested in the patents or in licenses, so that means will exist for ascertaining the |