drawings be amended before he proceeds with the application; and in the latter case the application shall, if the comptroller so directs, bear date as from the time when the requirement is complied with.

(2.) Where the comptroller refuses to accept an application or requires an amendment, the applicant may appeal from his decision to the law officer.

(3.) The law officer shall, if required, hear the applicant and the comptroller, and may make an order determining whether, and subject to what conditions [if any], the application shall be accepted.

(4.) The comptroller shall, when an application has been accepted, give notice thereof to the applicant.

(5.) If, after an application for a patent has been made, but before the patent thereon has been sealed, another application for a patent is made, accompanied by a specification bearing the same or a similar title, the comptroller, if he thinks fit, on the request of the second applicant, or of his legal representative, may, within two months of the grant of a patent on the first application, either decline to proceed with the second application or allow the surrender of the patent, if any, granted thereon.

8. (Amended by 48 & 49 Vict. c. 63, sect. 3.) (1.) If the applicant does not leave a complete specification with his application, he may leave it at any subsequent time within nine months from the date of application, [or within such extended time, not exceeding one month, as the comptroller may on payment of the prescribed fee allow].

(2.) Unless a complete specification is left within that time the application shall be deemed to be abandoned.

9. (Amended by 48 & 49 Vict. c. 63, sect. 3.) Where a complete specification is left after a provisional specification, the comptroller shall refer both specifications to an examiner for the purpose of ascertaining whether the complete specification has been prepared in the prescribed manner, and whether the invention particularly described in the complete specification is substantially the same as that which is described in the provisional specification. (2.) If the examiner reports that the conditions herein before contained have not been complied with, the comptroller may refuse to accept the complete specification unless and until the same shall have been amended to his satisfaction; but any such refusal shall be subject to appeal to the law officer. (3.) The law officer shall, if required, hear the applicant and the comptroller, and may make an order determining whether and subject to what conditions, if any, the complete specification shall be accepted.

(4.) Unless a complete specification is accepted within twelve months (or within such extended time not exceeding three months as the comptroller may on payment of the prescribed fee allow) from the date of application, then (save in the case of an appeal having been lodged against the refusal to accept) the application shall, at the expiration of those twelve months [or of such extended time], become void.

(5.) (Amended by 51 & 52 Vict. c. 50, sect. 3.) Reports of examiners shall not in any case be published or be open to public inspection, and shall not be liable to production or inspection in any legal proceeding, unless the Court or officer having power to order discovery in such legal proceeding shall certify that such production or inspection is desirable in the interests of justice, and ought to be allowed.

48 & 49 Vict. c. 63, sect. 2. Whereas sub-sect. 2 of sect. 5 of the principal Act requires a declaration to be made by an applicant for a patent to the effect in that sub-section mentioned, and doubts have arisen as to the nature of that declaration, and it is expedient to remove such doubts; be it therefore enacted that: The declaration mentioned in sub-sect. 2 of sect. 5 of the principal Act may be either a statutory declaration under the Statutory Declarations Act, 1835, or not, as may be from time to time prescribed.

36

APPLICATION FOR LETTERS PATENT.

Sect. 3. Whereas under the principal Act, a complete specification is required (by section eight) to be left within nine months, and (by section nine) to be accepted within twelve months, from the date of application, and a patent is required by section twelve to be sealed within fifteen months from the date of application, and it is expedient to empower the comptroller to extend in certain cases the said times: Be it therefore enacted as follows: A complete specification may be left and accepted within such extended times, not exceeding one month and three months respectively after the said nine and twelve months respectively as the comptroller may on payment of the prescribed fee allow, and where such extension of time has been allowed, a further extension of four months after the said fifteen months shall be allowed for the sealing of the patent; and the principal Act shall have effect as if any time so allowed were added to the said periods specified in the principal Act.

4. Where an application for a patent has been abandoned, or become void, the specification or specifications and drawings (if any) accompanying or left in connexion with such application, shall not at any time be open to public inspection or be published by the comptroller.

5. Whereas doubts have arisen whether under the principal Act a patent may lawfully be granted to several persons jointly, some or one of whom only are or is the true and first inventors or inventor; be it therefore enacted and declared that it has been aud is lawful under the principal Act to grant such a patent.

PATENT RULES, 1890. 6. (1.) An application for a patent containing the declaration mentioned in sub-sect. 2 of sect. 5 of the Act of 1883, and sect. 2 of the Act of 1885 shall be made either in the Form A or the Form A 1 or the Form A 2 set forth in the Second Schedule to these rules, as the case may be. (2.) The Form B in such Schedule of provisional specification and the Form C of complete specification shall respectively be used.

(3.) The remaining forms other than A, A 1, A 2, B and C set forth in the Second Schedule to these Rules may, as far as they are applicable, be used in any proceedings under these rules.

8. An application for a patent must be signed by the applicant, but all other communications between the applicant and the comptroller and all attendances by the applicant upon the comptroller may be made by or through an agent duly authorised to the satisfaction of the comptroller, and if he so require resident in the United Kingdom.

9. The application shall be accompanied by a statement of an address to which all notices, requisitions, and communications of every kind may be made by the comptroller or by the Board of Trade, and such statement shal thereafter be binding upon the applicant unless and until a substituted statement of address shall be turnished by him to the comptroller. He may in any particular case require that the address mentioned in this rule be in the United Kingdom.

10. All documents and copies of documents, except statutory declarations and affidavits, sent to or left at the Patent Office or otherwise furnished to the comptroller or to the Board of Trade shall be written or printed in large and legible characters, and, unless otherwise directed, in the English language upon strong wide ruled paper (on one side only), of a size of 13 inches by 8 inches, leaving a margin of 2 inches on the left-hand part thereof, and the signature of the applicants or agents thereto must be written in a large and legible hand. Duplicate documents shall at any time be left, if required by the comptroller.

11. Before exercising any discretionary power given to the comptroller by the said Acts adversely to the applicant for a patent or for amendment of a specification, the comptroller shall give ten days' notice, or such longer

notice as he may think fit, to the applicant of the time when he may be heard personally or by his agent before the comptroller. Statutory declarations and affidavits shall be in the form for the time being in use in the High Court of Justice.

12. Within five days from the date when such notice would be delivered in the ordinary course of post, or such longer time as the comptroller may appoint in such notice, the applicant shall notify in writing to the comptroller whether or not he intends to be heard upon the matter.

13. Whether the applicant desires to be heard or not, the comptroller may at any time require him to submit a statement in writing within a time to be notified by the comptroller, or to attend before him and make oral explanations with respect to such matters as the comptroller may require.

14. The decision or determination of the comptroller in the exercise of any such discretionary power as aforesaid shall be notified by him to the applicant, and any other person affected thereby.

18. Applications for patents sent through the post shall, as far as may be practicable, be opened and numbered in the order in which the letters containing the same have been respectively delivered in the ordinary course of post. Applications left at the Patent Office otherwise than through the post shall be in like manner numbered in the order of their receipt at the Patent Office. 19. Where a person making application for a patent includes therein by mistake, inadvertence, or otherwise, more than one invention, he may, after the refusal of the comptroller to accept such application, amend the same so as to apply to one invention only, and may inake application for separate patents for each such invention accordingly.

Every such application shall, if the applicant notify his desire to that effect to the comptroller, bear the date of the first application, and shall, together therewith, be proceeded with in the manner prescribed by the said Act and by these Rules, as if every such application had been originally made on that date.

20. An application for a patent by the legal representative of a person who has died possessed of an invention shall be accompanied by an official copy of or extract from his will, or the letters of administration granted of his estate and effects in proof of the applicant's title as such legal representative, and must be supported by such further evidence as the comptroller may require.

21. On the acceptance of a provisional or complete specification the comptroller shall give notice thereof to the applicant, and shall advertise such acceptance in the official journal of the Patent Office.

22. Upon the publication of such advertisement of acceptance in the case of an application with a complete specification, the application and specification or specifications with the drawings (if any) may be inspected at the Patent Office upon payment of the prescribed fee.

23. An application for a patent for an invention communicated from abroad shall be made in the Form A 1 set forth in the Second Schedule to these Rules.

Application generally.

(b) SMITH'S PATENT. [1884]

If at the end of a specification there is a real statement of the invention claimed it is not competent to the Patent Office to inquire whether the statement goes beyond or is in conformity with the description in the specification of the invention. (Griff. 268.)

(c) BROWN'S PATENT. [1887]

The title being for "improvements in casks and tubs," the specification described the invention as applicable to tubs and

analogous vessels in which the staves were formed with a groove for receiving the head :-Held, that the title was sufficient without the words "and analogous vessels."

The patentee is entitled to frame his title in his own way provided he does not infringe the rules of the statute. (2 Griff. 1.) (d) EVERITT'S APPLICATION. [1888]

The provisional specification only described a general principle of obtaining automatically a given quantity of liquid in exchange for a coin; the complete specification described special mechanism for effecting it. The law officer allowed the patent, but stated that if it were shewn in any case that the applicant had made use of other persons' specifications in drawing up his complete specification, the complete specification would not be allowed. (2 Griff. 27.)

(e) ATHERTON'S APPLICATION. [1889]

The claims in a patent are inserted at the risk of the patentee, because he jeopardises his patent by inserting too much; but where the sixth claim was practically identical with the third, the law officer struck it out as unnecessary and misleading. An applicant may insert what he believes to be a statement of prior knowledge, but he must not give therein his own version of what processes have been described in former patents. If he wishes to refer to such patents in connection with his statement of prior knowledge, he should put the statement in this form: "Processes for...... heretofore in use and to which I make no claim are..... Illustrations of such processes are to be found in the specifications of.......' (6 O. R. 547.)

(f) C.'s APPLICATION. [1890]

The report of the examiner is not to fetter the judgment of the comptroller, but to assist him, and if the comptroller sees, apart from the report, that the specification is on its face insufficient, he may require an amendment. (7 O. R. 250.)

Application-Opposition.

PATENTS ACT, 1883, sect. 11. (1) (Amended by 51 & 52 Vict. c. 50, sect. 4). Any person may at any time within two months from the date of the advertisement of the acceptance of a complete specification give notice at the Patent Office of opposition to the grant of the patent on the ground of the applicant having obtained the invention from him, or from a person of whom he is the legal representative, or on the ground that the invention has been patented in this country on an application of prior date, or on the ground that the complete specification describes or claims an invention other than that described in the provisional specification, and that such other invention forms the subject of an application made by the opponent in the interval between the leaving of the provisional specification and the leaving of the complete specification, but on no other ground.

(2) Where such notice is given the comptroller shall give notice of the opposition to the applicant, and shall, on the expiration of those two months, after hearing the applicant and the person so giving notice, if desirous of being heard, decide on the case, but subject to appeal to the law officer.

(3) The law officer shall, if required, hear the applicant and any person

so giving notice and being, in the opinion of the law officer, entitled to be heard in opposition to the grant, and shall determine whether the grant ought or ought not to be made.

(4) The law officer may, if he thinks fit, obtain the assistance of an expert, who shall be paid such remuneration as the law officer, with the consent of the Treasury, shall appoint.

PATENT RULES, 1890. 34. A notice of opposition to the grant of a patent shall be on Form D, and shall state the ground or grounds on which the person giving such notice (hereinafter in Rules 37, 38, 41, and 43 called the opponent) intends to oppose the grant, and shall be signed by him. Such notice shall state his address for service in the United Kingdom.

35. On receipt of such notice the copy thereof shall be transmitted by the comptroller to the applicant.

36. Where the ground or one of the grounds of opposition is that the invention has been patented in this country on an application of prior date, the number, and date of such prior application shall be specified in the notice. 37. Within fourteen days after the expiration of two months from the date of the advertisement of the acceptance of a complete specification, the opponent may leave at the Patent Office statutory declarations in support of his opposition, and on so leaving shall deliver to the applicant a list thereof.

38. Within fourteen days from the delivery of such list the applicant may leave at the Patent Office statutory declarations in answer, and on so leaving shall deliver to the opponent a list thereof, and within fourteen days from such delivery the opponent may leave at the Patent Office his statutory declarations in reply, and on so leaving shall deliver to the applicant a list thereof. Such last-mentioned declarations shall be confined to matters strictly in reply.

Copies of the declarations mentioned in this and the last preceding Rule may be obtained either from the Patent Office or from the opposite party.

39. No further evidence shall be left on either side except by leave of the comptroller upon the written consent of the parties duly notified to him, or by special leave of the comptroller on application in writing made to him for that purpose.

40. Either party making such application shall give notice thereof to the opposite party, who shall be entitled to oppose the application.

41. On completion of the evidence, or at such other time as he may see fit, the comptroller shall appoint a time for the hearing of the case, and shall give the parties ten days' notice at the least of such appointment. If the applicant or opponent desires to be heard, he must forthwith send the comptroller an application on Form E. The comptroller may refuse to hear either party who has not sent such application for hearing. If neither party applies to be heard, the comptroller shall decide the case and notify his decision to the parties.

42. On the hearing of the case no opposition shall be allowed in respect of any ground not stated in the notice of opposition, and where the ground or one of the grounds is that the invention has been patented in this country on an application of prior date, the opposition shall not be allowed upon such ground unless the number and date of such prior application shall have been duly specified in the notice of opposition.

43. Where the ground of an opposition is that the applicant has obtained the invention from the opponent, or from a person of whom such opponent is the legal representative, unless evidence in support of such allegation be left at the Patent Office within the time prescribed by these Rules, the opposition shall be deemed to be abandoned, and a patent shall be sealed forthwith.

44. The decision of the comptroller, after hearing any party who applies under Rule 41, shall be notified by him to the parties.