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A

COLLECTION

OF

THE MOST IMPORTANT CASES

RESPECTING

PATENTS OF INVENTION

AND

The Rights of Patentees,

WHICH

HAVE BEEN DETERMINED IN THE COURTS OF LAW SINCE
THE STATUTE FOR RESTRAINING MONOPOLIES.

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PREFACE.

THE collector of these cases having been upwards of thirty years in the office of the Rolls Chapel, has frequently had his attention drawn to patents and specifications of inventions, that being one of the offices in which such specifications are enrolled; and having for many years been concerned for inventors, in soliciting patents for their inventions, he has consequently been led to think much upon the subject, and has felt great surprise, and regret, that no book of the kind, now proposed, has ever been produced by any gentleman versed in this sort of business, and competent to the work.

He has mentioned his plan to several gentlemen in the profession of the law, to others,

who, like himself, are employed as agents for procuring patents, and also, to some scientific and mechanical persons, who have uniformly approved of the idea; and spoken in the strongest terms, both of the necessity and utility of such a work as is now offered to the public.

He has, it is true, in some degree, been anticipated by Mr. Collier's "Essay on the Law of Patents for Inventions," and by Mr. Hands's book on "The Law and Practice of Patents for Inventions;" but as appears to the compiler and those whose opinion he has been favoured with upon the subject, not in such a manner as to preclude the necessity of the present undertaking, as they are neither of them regular reports of cases, shewing the arguments of counsel, and giving the dicta of the judges settling the various points; besides which, one has given much extraneous matter, and the other is almost exclusively confined to forms, with many of which the patentee or his agent has nothing to do, it being the duty of the officers in the offices through which the patent passes in

its progress, to draw most of the instruments

there given.

Those books, however, are now nearly, if not quite out of print, having met with a very rapid sale, from the want experienced not only by patentees, but by the profession, of a work which would bring the whole of the law of patents into one point of view; the compiler, therefore, is induced to offer the present collection to the public, not from any confidence in his superior qualifications for such an undertaking, as he is aware that the only merit he can claim is that of diligence in collecting the materials. A great deal of laborious research, and he hopes due diligence, has been given, in collecting from various sources, what appeared to him to be the most important decisions upon the subject, and he takes this opportunity of expressing his grateful thanks to those gentlemen of the profession who have kindly furnished him with the papers in many of the cases here reported, which he had no means of bringing before the public without their liberal assistance; but still many cases may,

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