PAGE Waggoner v. Fish Walker v. Congreve 61, 64, 173 Wallington v. Dale .. . 118, 159, 183, 339, 343 Walton v. Bateman .. Stocking v. Llewellyn Sturtz v. Delarue, 85, 131, 133, 134, .. 327, 342 133, 275 121, 312 342 Watson v. Pears 155 Weatherhead v. Saunders 243 336, 339 Webb v. Harvey 244 322 Webster v. Uther Wellesley v. Mornington .. 340 343 Westrupp and Gibbins' Patent 193, 197 341 Whitehouse's Patent ..181, 214, 220 Whittemore v. Cutter 257, 307 Whittingham v. Wooler.. 328, 346 Whytock's Patent, 209, 215, 219, 226 320, 322, 325 329, 339 Tailors', The, of Ipswich, case Williams v. Brodie Talbot v. Laroche 273 v. Williams.. 29, 30, 31, 41, 33, 36 295 Taylor v. Hare v. Taylor 261 v. Zamyra 311 Willoughby v. Brook 311 Taylor's Patent 224, 227 Wilson v. Northop v. Tindal 321 Temple v. Bank of England Templeton v. Macfarlane.. Winter v. Foweracres.. 117 296 Wood v. Cockerell 328 Tennant's case, 90, 93, 105, 108, 294 v. Gunston 252 Tetley v. Easton 126, 130, 137 Thompson v. Brown Tielens v. Hooper 117 Tipping v. Clarke Tolson v. Kaye 174 v. Zimmer.. 88, 91, 127, 128 Wordsworth, Ex parte Wright's Patent..206, 209, 219, 225 218, 223 180 Wroth's case (Sir T.) 231 Turner v. Evans 36 -v. Winter..S9, 41, 127, 128, Wyatt v. Barnard 131, 132, 281 Wyeth v. Stone 80 A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF PATENTS. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. LETTERS PATENT for inventions are grants of record Definition. under the Great Seal, whereby, in consideration of the improvement effected by such inventions in trade, the exclusive enjoyment of such improved trade for a limited period is assured to the parties first communicating the inventions to the public. Few of our existing institutions have passed through Vicissitudes of so extraordinary a career, and none perhaps have reverted the subject. so nearly to their original position. Conceived in the very essence of paternal government, and maintained, notwithstanding its manifest abuses, by arguments now abandoned as fallacious, this species of monopoly is still a So called from the form of the grant, which is in open letters (literæ patentes), addressed by the sovereign to the subjects at large. 2 Bl. Com. 346; Collier on Patents, 64. b Although not common among the Saxons, seals were used as early as the time of Edgar. Impressions on wax were first used by William the Conqueror, and coats of arms as a seal owed their origin to the time of Richard I. (Com. Dig. Pat. C. 2.) For specimens and descriptions of some of the seals in ancient grants, see (1702) Madox, Formulare Anglicanum, A Dissertation on Ancient Charters and In struments. c "Manufactures of moderate expense and quick growth may, in general, safely be left to private adventurers, and run the common B Importance of the history of exclusive privileges in trade. "Inventions" an incident of modern times. looked upon as politic and just, and compatible with a régime which abandons a protective policy as false in principle, and holds all authoritative interference with trade to be an evil. d The history of exclusive privileges in trade is interesting from its intimate connection with the progress of our commerce, manufactures and art, and the illustration it affords of the development of our constitutional liberty. In its progress we recognize the action of our national characteristics, the conservative temper that shields obnoxious institutions through times of popular excitement, and the spirit of reform ever busy in moulding them into conformity with, and rendering them subservient to, the requirements of the times. To the former we owe a theory unchanged since the days of the Tudors and Stuarts, to the latter the removal of the abuses that disfigured it, and its appropriation to a purpose almost peculiar to the present day. "By the wisdom of the nation," says a learned writer, "this poison of the state has been deprived of all its pernicious ingredients, and converted into a nutricious aliment applicable to the support of commercial prosperity." The exclusive use of new inventions, although the origin and the supporting principle of the whole, plays but an insignificant part in the great system of monopolies, which at one time embraced the greater portion of the mechanical arts, and many branches of foreign chance of success: the finer arts will never flourish but under public protection and noble patronage; no encouragement in the hands of private persons is adequate reward to the man of genius who studies the universal promotion of these more useful arts which give daily bread to millions of the human species, support the dignity of crowns and the magnificence of the great and wealthy. A noble profusion of honours and bounty raised the Gobelines to its present height: the united influence of these two being generally sufficient to call forth whatever human industry can attain to." (Savary (1741), Dictionnaire Universel de Commerce.) d 1851, Evid. 2345. e Collier on Patents, 12. |