The expense is also increased before the Great Seal-the Chancellor, two pounds odd; and there is an extra fee at the Hanaper, which is received by the patent clerk at the Great Seal Office.

When an infringement of a patent takes place, the mode pursued by the patentee of preventing that infringement continuing is, by an application to the Court of Chancery for an injunction; but the injunction is always dissolved upon the application of the other party to try it; and the defence of a patent is one of the most expensive kinds of defences, on account of the kind of witnesses that are generally necessary; it has become the fashion of late to subpoena a number of eminent scientific men, some, perhaps, brought from a great distance. The expense of defending a patent has now become enormously great.

States, in answer to further interrogatories, that it would be highly desirable if any means could be devised by which the applicant for a patent should be protected from the moment he applies for his patent; but though he has thought a great deal about the matter, has not been able to arrive at the conclusion that it would, on the whole, be beneficial to make a person enrol his specification immediately on his applying for or obtaining his patent. If his preliminary description of his invention is to be of any utility, it ought to be complete; for if a man is left to enlarge or contract it, you leave an open door to all the mischief you are attempting to guard against. Should hesitate much before he would say that a commission of scientific men to determine between rival applicants, or to judge of the sufficiency of the specifications, would be considered satisfactory: thinks it would be attended with great danger to patentees, and productive of favouritism. The Attorney-General has it in his power now to call in the aid of scientific men when he thinks it necessary; has known Sir Thomas Plumer do so.

22d May, 1829.

Mr. Abbott, being again examined, states, that specifications may be en

£10 0 0

rolled at any one of the three different offices-the Petty Bag Office, the Rolls' Chapel Office, and the Inrolment Office; and thinks it a great grievance that a person has no means of knowing in what office any patent of which he is in search is enrolled, particularly as he has to pay separate fees of search at each office. That extracts or specifications are not permitted to be made; they are only to be allowed to be perused. That the present practice of requiring separate patents for the three kingdoms appears to witness to be attended with no advantage, but, on the contrary, to be a source of very great and unnecessary expense. That an inconvenience would, in his opinion, result from keeping a specification sealed, because it is one object of the specification that a man shall know when he is infringing the patent; and if the specification were not open to inspection, a man who had invented something of the same kind would not know whether he could work it with safety, because he could not see what the patentee claims under his spe cification; besides, if his specification could not be seen for fourteen years, (it would very likely turn out that, at the end of the period, he had not given half his process, when he would have had his monopoly for so many years without giving the public the benefit of his discovery.

Mr. Wm. Newton, Machine Draftsman

and Patent Agent, examined with respect to the French laws of patents.

States, the course of proceeding In France is to deposit a preliminary specification with the petition and other papers called the Proces Verbal, which immediately upon depositing you take a certificate for; you then pay one-half of the government charges, which vary according to the length of time for which you solicit your patent; you immediately take the certificate and get it enrolled, for which you pay a small sum, and that gives your patent precedence of all others that shall follow, even if another for the same subject come in the course of an hour. Your papers

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are all sealed till they come before a consultive board of scientific persons, who if they find that the specification is not satisfactory, call for further information, and then a more perfect specification must be lodged. The duties of this consultive board are not contined to ascertaining whether the specification is full and complete ; one object is to ascertain whether the invention is original. If it has been published in any printed book, they will refuse the grant, and on refusing the grant will return the fees paid. In France, a patent is open to have all improvements and amendments added during the whole period, upon paying a small fee. Perhaps a year or two after, when an inventor has made a sufficient number of experimeuts, he applies for a patent of Perfectionment, as they call it, and then he enrols his amended specification; and whatever the consultive board approves of, as falling within the range of the first claim, and entirely belonging to it, is granted as part of the original patent, on paying a trifling fee. In the opinion of witness, a similar course of proceeding would be highly desirable in England; because there are many instances in which the patentee, not being able to pursue his experiments and construct his machinery before the enrolment of his specification, has ultimately found that he was deficient in parts, and has been obliged to go through the whole process of obtaining patents for the three kingdoms anew,

Witness considers that a consultive board like that in France would be beneficial in this country, if composed of geutlemen who are not actually manufacturers or operative engineers; but who have been, and who are well acquainted with scientific matters. In France if there are twenty things claimed in a patent, and nineteen of them should turn out to be old, the twentieth still stauds its ground without overturning the patent. A similar rule would, in witness's opinion, be exceedingly desirable here.

Supposing a patent in France is attacked in a court of justice, is it an answer to that attack that the Commissioners have investigated it and have granted the patent, and that therefore any objection to it is precluded?- No; I believe the Com missioners do not take any such responsibility upon themselves, and I do not think it would be expedient that they should do so; I think that

that which the Commissioners do is tantamount to that which the Attorney. General here ought to do; he reports that be has examined this subject, and thinks it will be for the benefit of the country that the King shoulu grant a patent; whereas we all know that the Attorney-General is otherwise occupied.

Then you conceive it is no defence to the patentee himself to say, that this has been examined by the Commission?—I think none at all.

Are patents ever overturned in France, upon the ground of their not being sufficiently described ?—I think that never can be a ground, because it would be known in the progress of the investigation that such would be likely to be a ground of opposition to it, and the parties would take care to amend it. In France, the specification is always open to have a rider appended to it, while in Englund you cannot alter a single letter which you may even have inserted in error. I have lately been obliged to go over a " patent again, in which there was an error of a single letter only; it was the word pressing instead of dressing : and I have been obliged to solicit the patent again.

Do you happen to know whether it' is a bar to taking out a patent in France, if they know that that patent, is already in existence in another country ? No, that is not a barrier to taking out a patent in France; there is a condition that, when you take out a patent in France, you shall not take out a patent any where else, or, if you do, your patent in France is vitiated the same happens in all the other Continental States, but that is got over with the greatest case, because you employ your agent, or your brother, or your friend; and so an invention runs through all the countries, beginning in America and coming to England, then Scotland, then Ireland, then France, Holland, Prussia, Austria, and Russia'; and that is the course they generally take all the way, under different names, beyond England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Do you know what is the expense of a patent in France?-It depends upon the length of time for which it is granted; the patents are gravted for five, for ten, and for fifteen years; the Government-duty upon a five years' patent is 300 francs, about '127. exclusive of other fees, enrolments, and so on, which are triffing; for ten

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if any body has made, used, vended, or exercised that thing before, that will defeat the patent: now the publication of an invention in a book, is not either making, using,* exercising, or vending it; and yet it is notorious, that the statement of an invention in a book will prevent a patent being taken out for it. Patents are most frequently set aside on account of some trifling fault in the specification, the result of ignorance, or want of caution; thinks this a grievance, and that every patent should be sustained to the extent of what there is new in it. Thinks that a patentee should be at liberty to add at any future time, such improvements as may occur to him; and that no patent should be refused, because some notice or hint of the invention had been publicly given before, only on the ground of its being actually in use. Deems it advisable, that the three kingdoms should be included in one patent, but would have copies of the specification deposited in the three capitals for inspection.

Mr. Charles Few, being again examined,

Read to the committee a paper containing his ideas of the sort of commission which should be appointed for deciding on patents; and a form of process adapted to it. Would invest in this commission the whole of the powers now possessed by the Attorney-General, and no more, except that they should have the additional power of permitting an inventor to add to his specification any amendments that may occur to him during the period of his patent.

Mr. Moses Poole, Clerk in the Patent Office, examined.

Does not see any defect in the present law, except, perhaps, that the specification might be made more sure. Neither any inconvenience if the law

is properly followed up; being farther interrogated, however, admits, that there is an uncertainty, what is and what is not the law ! that there are, în truth, a great many inconveniences attending it, and thinks well of the plan of transferring the powers of the Attorney-General to a Commission.

Do you think there is any inconvenience as to cost, in taking out the patent at present?-I do not think it is too dear.

What is the whole expense?-About 3601. for the three kingdoms; if there is a short specification, and no opposition.

What advantage do you conceive is derived to the public, from making the price of a patent so high?-It prevents patents being taken out for too trifling objects.

What inconvenience do you think would result if patents were to become more numerous, and they were to be taken out for trifling inventions ?—It would be, I think, to the injury of the common tradesman. A patent is an exclusive right to the vending of a certain article, and of course the patentee has a privilege over the rest in the same trade; if he gets that privilege too cheap, it would be to the injury of other tradesmen in the same line.

If he makes a useful discovery, why should he not derive the benent of it? -The privilege is so great when the thing is worth any thing at all, he ought to pay for it.*

You have no objection then to the present expense?-No; I have known them to get 130,0001. by a patent; they all run the risk of losing by it, and those who get so much pay no more than those who lose by it.

Mr. Poole, at the conclusion of his examination, delivered in a statement of the expense at each of the offices in taking out a patent; of which statement the following is a sum

mary: