the elliptical ends being placed below the body of the carriage. The alleged invention substantially consisted in the substitution of composite for elliptical springs in the fore part of the carriage, and in attaching them to the fore axle in the same way in which they were previously attached to the hind axle, except that the C end of the spring was turned forwards :-Held, that this involved no ingenuity, and was not good subject-matter. (7 O. R. 131.) (x) LEADBEATER v. KITCHIN. C. A. [1890]

The plaintiff's specification described improvements in guards to prevent accidents where belts and pulleys, and also where geared wheels were used:-Held, that the claim included guards both for geared wheels and belts, and was therefore too wide, and that even if confined to guards as applied to belts, it was only for the use of an old thing for an analogous purpose. (7 O. R. 235.)

Principle.

(y) BOULTON v. BULL. [1795]

Rooke, J.: "The term 'principle' is equivocal; it may denote either the radical elementary truths of a science, or those consequential axioms which are founded on radical truths, but which are used as fundamental truths by those who do not find it expedient to have recourse to first principles." (2 H. Bl. 479.) Heath, J.: "The Marquis of Worcester discovered, in the last century, the expansive force of steam, and first applied it to machinery. As the original inventor he was clearly entitled to a patent. Would the patent have been good applied to all machinery, or to the machines which he had discovered? The patent decides the question. It must be for the vendible matter, and not for the principle. Another objection may be urged against the patent, upon the application of the principle to an old machine, which is, that whatever machinery may be hereafter invented would be an infringement of the patent, if it be founded on the same principle. If this were so it would reverse the clearest positions of law respecting patents for machinery, by which it has been always holden, that the organisation of a machine may be the subject of a patent, but principles cannot. .. Indeed it seems impossible to specify a principle, and its application to all cases, which furnishes an argument that it cannot be the subject of a patent." (Ib. 483.) Mr. Justice Buller: "The very statement of what a principle is, proves it not to be a ground for a patent. It is the first ground and rule for arts and sciences, or in other words, the elements and rudiments of them. A patent must be for some new production from those elements, and not for the elements themselves." (Ib. 485.) (2 H. Bl. 463; 1 Carp. P. C. 117; Dav. P. C. 162.)

(z) JUPE v. PRATT. [1837]

Alderson, B., said: "You cannot take out a patent for a principle; you may take out a patent for a principle coupled with the mode of carrying the principle into effect, provided you have not only discovered the principle, but invented some mode of carrying it into effect. But then you must start with having invented

some mode of carrying the principle into effect; if you have done that, then you are entitled to protect yourself from all other modes of carrying the same principle into effect, that being treated by the jury as piracy of your original invention." (1 Web. P. C. 146.) (a) NEILSON v. HARFORD. [1841]

Alderson, B.: "I take the distinction between a patent for a principle and a patent which can be supported, is, that you must have an embodiment of the principle in some practical mode described in the specification of carrying the principle into actual effect, and then you take out your patent, not for the principle, but for the mode of carrying the principle into effect." (1 Web. P. C. 342.) "There is no difference between (claiming) a principle to be carried into effect in any way you will, and claiming the principle itself." (Ib. 355.)

(b) THE HOUSEHILL COMPANY v. NEILSON. [1843]

Lord Justice Clerk Hope: "A patent cannot be taken out solely for an abstract philosophical principle-for instance, for any law of nature, or any property of matter, apart from any mode of turning it to account in the practical operations of manufacture, or the business, and arts, and utilities of life. The mere discovery of such a principle is not an invention, in the patent-law sense of the term. Stating such a principle in a patent may be a promulgation of the principle, but it is no application of the principle to any practical purpose. And without that application of the principle to a practical object and end, and without the application of it to human industry, or to the purposes of human enjoyment, a person cannot in the abstract appropriate a principle to himself. But a patent will be good, though the subject of the patent consists in the discovery of a great, general, and most comprehensive principle in science or law of nature, if that principle is by the specification applied to any special purpose, so as thereby to effectuate a practical result and benefit not previously attained. (1 Web. P. C. 683.). . . A claim for all modes of applying the principle to the purpose specified, according to or within a general statement of the object to be attained, and of the use to be made of the agent to be so applied, is no objection whatever to the patent. That the application or use of the agent for the purpose specified, may be carried out in a great variety of ways, only shows the beauty, and simplicity, and comprehensiveness of the invention. (lb. 684)... I state to you the law to be, that you may obtain a patent for a mode of carrying a principle into effect; and if you suggest and discover, not only the principle, but suggest and invent how it may be applied to a practical result by mechanical contrivance and apparatus, and show that you are aware that no particular sort or modification, or form of apparatus, is essential, in order to obtain benefit from the principle, then you may take your patent for the mode of carrying it into effect, and are not under the necessity of describing and confining yourself to one form of apparatus. If that were necessary, you see what would be the result? Why, that a patent could hardly ever be obtained for any mode of carrying a newly-discovered principle into practical results, though the

most valuable of all discoveries. For the best form and shape or modification of apparatus cannot, in matters of such vast range, and requiring observation on such a great scale, be attained at once; and so the thing would become known, and so the right lost, long before all the various kinds of apparatus could be tried. Hence you may generally claim the mode of carrying the principle into effect by mechanical contrivance, so that any sort of apparatus applied in the way stated will, more or less, produce the benefit, and you are not tied down to any form." (Ib. 685.) (1 Web. P. C. 673; 9 C. & F. 788.)

(c) CROSSLEY v. POTTER. N. P. [1853]

The title was for "certain improvements in weaving figured fabrics." The patentee in his specification says: "My improvements in weaving figured fabrics apply to those particular kinds of fabric which have a terry or raised loop surface, such as coach lace, Brussels carpeting, velvets, and other woven goods having terry or raised surfaces, either plain or figured." The evidence went to show that without additional parts, which were not mentioned, the machine described in the specification was capable of making coach lace, but not of making either carpet or velvet goods. Pollock, C.B., in directing the jury, said: "The truth appears to me to be this, that the patent is very much like what has often been attempted, viz., to take out a patent for a principle, which the law will not allow. Any man who takes out a patent must take it for a manufacture. It is very true that patents are continually taken out for what are called methods,' or 'processes'; but the real object of the patent, the real end that is secured by the statute, the matter that is alone mentioned in it capable of being made the subject of a patent, is a new manufacture; and everybody who takes out a patent under the name of a process, really takes it out for that which is the result of the process, for the thing that is manufactured, or the process by which it is produced.' (Macrory's P. C. 240.)

(d) PATTERSON v. THE GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMP. H. L. [1877]

The discovery of a more skilful and efficient mode of working a process, already known and in use, is not the proper subject of a patent. (2 Ch. D. 812. Affirmed in H. of L., 3 App. Cas. 239.)

A patentee claimed, "First: The employment of sulphides of calcium in separate purifiers, as a means of purifying coal gas from sulphur existing in other forms than in that of sulphuretted hydrogen. Secondly: A method or system of employing lime purifiers in the manner hereinafter described, whereby the contents of all the said purifiers, or of any required number of them, can be converted into sulphides of calcium, and also (if required) be maintained in that condition." James, L.J., delivering the judgment of the Court of Appeal (James, Baggallay, L.JJ., and Lush J.), said: "There is nothing in this (the first claim) but the enunciation of a chemical truth, that pure sulphides of calcium will absorb the sulphur compounds. The plaintiff believed that he had discovered that chemical truth, although it had been

taught for many years in many books, and was well known to chemists. There is no invention of any particular process or means of employing the pure sulphide of calcium. If pure sulphide of calcium is to be used, it must be used in some separate holder of it, and the thing holding it would be a separate purifier, and there is nothing, therefore, in any previous part of the specification to limit the universality of the claims to the employment of sulphides of calcium for the removal of sulphur in other forms than sulphuretted hydrogen. It is obviously impossible to support such a claim as that, which was plainly based on the plaintiff's mistaken idea that he had discovered that peculiar property in sulphide of calcium." (2 Ch. D. 833.)

Referring to the second claim, the Court said: "There is in that no suggestion of any new apparatus of any new process. There is no device or scheme of any kind. Lime purifiers in succession were in general, almost universal use, wherever lime could be freely used. . What he (the plaintiff) claims to . have discovered is, that if the carbonic acid, which is the first thing taken up by the lime, is not wholly taken up at the beginning, and is allowed to enter the last purifier or purifiers, it in fact poisons the latter, decomposes the sulphide of calcium already formed, disengages the other sulphur absorbed by the sulphide, and of course fills the gas again with the sulphur impurities which had been removed. This is a very valuable working caution and direction, but it is impossible to make anything more of it than a working caution and direction. It really amounts to nothing more than a direction to be sufficiently liberal in the use of the caustic lime in the first stage, and an instruction that the moment it is so far carbonated as not to arrest the carbonic acid, it should be removed and a fresh supply of lime got. It may be a direction and instruction of the greatest possible value and utility, but it is utterly impossible to make such a direction and instruction, however valuable, the subject of a patent." (Ib. 834.)

In the House of Lords, Lord Blackburn said: "The appellant appears, from what he says in his specification, to be of opinion that, if he first discovered the theory and reason of that which had before been done empirically, he is entitled to a patent. I need hardly point out that this is a mistake; if, by reason of knowing the theory, he is enabled to make some improvements, he may take out a patent for the improvements, but he cannot take out a patent to prevent others using what they had used before, though only empirically." (3 App. Cas. 246.) (e) BADISCHE ANILIN UND SODA FAbrik v. LevinsteiN. H. L. [1887]

A patent cannot be granted for a principle alone, but may be granted for a principle coupled with a process by which the principle may be carried into effect:-Held, therefore, that the principle on which the plaintiff's method of producing colouring matters was based being new, and the process being sufficiently described to be commercially worked, the patent was valid. (24 Ch. D. 156; 12 App. C. 710.)

(f) AUTOMATIC WEIGHING MACHINE COMPANY v. KNIGHT. C. A. [1889]

Cotton, L.J.: You cannot take out a patent for a principle, you may take out a patent for a principle coupled with the mode of carrying the principle into effect, provided you have not only discovered the principle but invented some mode of carrying it into effect... Where there is a principle first applied in a machine capable of carrying it into effect, the Court looks more narrowly at those who carry out the same principle and say they do it by a different mode, and looks to see whether in effect, although the mode is not exactly the same, it is only a colourable difference." (6 O. R. 297, at p. 304.)

(g) THOMSON v. MOORE. Ir. C. A. [1889]

Palles, L.C.B.: "Although a principle, as distinct from the machine by which it is proposed to be applied, cannot be the subject of a patent, the consideration of the principle sought to be so applied may be material in determining the essence of that invention." (6 O. R. 426, at p. 450.) Affirmed in H. of L. (7 O. R. 325)

Substitute for Attorney-General may petition for revocation if authorised. Patents Act, 1883, sect. 26 (4) b., p. 402.

Cases as to Applications for Authority.

(h) BELL AND COLEMAN'S PATENT.

Authority was refused while an action for infringement was pending in Scotland. (Griff. 320.)

(i) MARTIN'S PATENT.

Where an application for authority is abandoned the law officer has no power to give costs. (Griff. 320.)

(j) SIDDELL'S Patent.

The application for authority was directed to stand over on Siddell's undertaking to bring an action. (Griff. 320.)

(k) WATLING'S PATENT.

The patentee had notice and did not appear, and authority was granted. (Griff. 320.)

(1) GOULARD AND GIBBS' PATENT.

Authority was given without notice to the patentees. (Griff. 320.)

(m) ROTHWELL'S PATENT.

Although an application to amend was pending, authority was given without notice to the patentee, who had abandoned an action for infringement against the applicant. (Griff. 320.)

Substituted Service granted, p. 40 (k).

Substitution of new ingredients is not patentable, pp. 528 (a), 530 (d), 538 (v) (1).