cuted to such alterations; the members of the Committee, who were thoroughly acquainted with the wants and wishes of inventors and manufacturers, thankfully accepted any portion of the measure as a first and great instalment of reform; and regard being had to interests in the three countries which were pressed upon the Committee, and to the conflicting nature of the views suggested by the opponents of reform, the public are greatly indebted to the Committee collectively, for having saved so much of the original measure. specifica 45 The provisional specification and preliminary ex- Objects of amination were intended to afford protection to the provisional inventors and to the public. The visionary nature of tion. many of the projects, and the visionary character of their authors, are notorious; the provisional specification and its examination by competent persons, are calculated to check the mere speculative inventor, whose supposed invention in the majority of cases will not admit of being expressed in distinct and intelligible language. Such an examination would check the majority of applications at the first stage, and save further expenditure to the inventor, and the creation of privileges of no use but to invite and encourage litigation. The provisional specification and preliminary examination were approved of by almost every witness examined before the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Bill of 1851, as affording a guarantee of the kind required. The opponents of patent law reform assigned much more extensive duties to the examiners than either the promoters of the measure, or the witnesses who gave evidence on the subject. The duties assigned were the satisfying themselves that the description was clear and intelligible, and that the invention was sufficiently defined, and many of the witnesses referred in support of these views to the beneficial operation of such examination under "The Protection of Inventions Act, 1851." It is true that some of Duties of cers. Reduction the witnesses spoke in favour of the opinion, that such a board ought to or might judge conclusively on the question of novelty, but few concurred in that opinion. This duty of preliminary examination spoken to by almost every witness as of paramount importance, and as requiring time, knowledge, and attention, which the varied occupations and frequent changes of the law officers precluded the possibility of being adequately discharged by them, however great their scientific as well as legal acquirements, the Committee of the House of Commons thought fit to impose upon the law officers, with whom now rests the responsibility, of certifying the sufficiency of the provisional specification, and that it states distinctly and intelligibly the whole nature of the invention so as to apprise the law officers of the improvement, and of the means by which it is to be carried out (7). Time will show the result of this alteration in a fundamental principle of the measure, not only without any evidence to guide the Committee, but in direct opposition to the most positive evidence on the subject. If inventors, relying on the certificates which have been given, should be grievously disappointed in the result, it must not be laid to the new system, but to those who deprived that system of this great safeguard and of the means of correcting evils and of relinquishing duties which the experience of all law officers had led them to wish to entrust to other persons. The reduction of the cost of patents has in this as of cost. in other countries acted as a great stimulus to invention, having placed the means of obtaining protection for and creating property in inventions within the reach of classes formerly excluded; but the corrective to such stimulus as applied in every other country is wanting, and no practical check upon the applications (1) See Rules of Commissioners, post 104. at present exists. The result is, that every inventor is tempted and induced to proceed through the successive stages, and to incur the whole cost of the patent, a consequence beneficial to his professional advisers, but very detrimental to the credit of a system framed with the view of preventing useless expenditure of money and time, and of checking as much as possible the creation of useless privileges. The evil last adverted to, namely, the stimulus Inspection which exists to prosecute every application for a of provisional spepatent, is augmented by another alteration, which cification. gives colour for the opinion that the provisional specification was to be a secret document. This is contrary to the intentions of the promoters of the original measure, and to the spirit of the Bills of 1851. It might be expedient so long as any considerable number of patents granted under the old system remained unspecified, that the provisional specifications should be secret documents; but the period for the enrolling of such specifications having passed, the provisional specifications, when certified as sufficient, ought to be open to inspection. The speech of Sir A. E. Cockburn, already quoted, assumed this; and the great object of provisional protection, namely, that a party may avail himself of the experience and knowledge of others, leads to the same conclusion. Further, the public and inventors have a right to know at the earliest moment, consistent with the security of the inventor, from what they are debarred; and it is contrary to public policy that such secresy should exist. Such secresy is an encouragement to crude and immature schemes, and injurious to inventors, who have a real interest in knowing at the earliest moment the demerits of their inventions. To suggest that fraudulent persons might thereby acquire a knowledge of the invention, and by means of such knowledge oppose the patent at a later stage, is to import into the new one of the crying defects of the old system, namely, that mere possession of an invention was a ground for opposing a patent, and to disregard the principle of the new system, that the first applicant has the prima facie right. The suggestion of prejudice to the foreign patents is of the same character; no person ought to apply for a patent whose invention is not sufficiently matured to furnish a description adequate for the foreign patents, and a short interval, as a fortnight, between the deposit of the provisional specification and its being open to inspection, would afford all the security that can be required in respect of the application for the foreign patents. All pay stamps. SECTION IV. ACT OF 1853. By an Act of the present Session (16 Vict., c. 5), ments by which received the Royal assent 21st of February, 1853, all payments are to be made by stamps of suitable denominations, instead of in money. The Commissioners of Stamps are to provide stamps of various denominations, which are to be used as directed in the Act; the applicant or person wishing for an office copy, or to consult any document, or to enter an opposition, will purchase a stamp, which will be retained in the office of the Commissioners of Patents, or affixed to the copies of documents, and thus afford evidence of the payment. Purchase of The Act also empowers the Commissioners to purchase the indexes of Mr. Bennett Woodcroft, for the use of the public. These indexes had been the subject of evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Lords, and their value to inventors, in enabling them to ascertain the subjects of prior patents, and as the nucleus of a complete history of inventions in the arts and manufactures, can hardly be too highly estimated. STATUTES. 14 Vict. c. 8. An Act to extend the Provisions of the Designs Act, 1850, and to give Protection from Piracy to Persons exhibiting new Inventions in the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one. [11 April, 1851.] Whereas it is expedient that such protection as hereinafter mentioned should be afforded to persons desirous of exhibiting new Inventions in the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: 14 Vict. c. 8. of new in to exhibit dice to I. Any new invention for which letters patent Proprietors might lawfully be granted, may at any time during ventions to the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, be allowed but not afterwards, be publicly exhibited in any place them withpreviously certified by the Lords of the Committee out prejuof Privy Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations letters pato be a place of exhibition within the meaning of the tent to be thereafter Designs Act, 1850, without prejudice to the validity granted. of any letters patent to be thereafter, during the term of the provisional registration herein-after mentioned, granted for such invention to the true and first in F |