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upon Roebuck presented an application to the Court of Session for an interdict or injunction against Stirling and Company's using the process. After a variety of proceedings, which it is unnecessary to detail, the injunction was granted for stopping Stirling and Company's works, while in the mean time, the following questions were raised and discussed between the parties: First, Stirling and Company mantained that the invention claimed by Roebuck was no new discovery, being only a slight variation in the method of conducting the manufacture: Secondly, There could be no discovery, inasmuch as Roebuck and Company had themselves carried on the manufacture for twenty years previously: Thirdly, That at the time the patent was granted, this method of manufacturing oil or spirit of vitriol in vessels of lead, was known to and practised by various other people, both in England and Scotland.

"These averments were denied by Roebuck, who, on the other hand, averred that, prior to the date of the patent, the manufacture of the oil of vitriol in vessels of lead was not publicly practised by any person whatever, either in England or Scotland.

"The Lord Ordinary, after reporting the cause to the Court, pronounced the following interlocutor: The Lord Ordinary, after having advised with the Lords and considered the condescendence for the chargers, with the answers thereto for the suspenders, and called the cause, before Answer, allows the chargers (i. e. respondents) to prove pro ut de jure, that the making the oil of vitriol from a mixture of sulphur and saltpetre in vessels of lead, was at the time, and before the date of the letters-patent in favour of the suspenders, (i. e. appellants,) known to and actually practised by others than the suspenders themselves; and allows the suspenders a conjunct probation thereanent, and grants commission to persons to be mutually named by parties' doers before extract, and failing such nomination, or in case the persons named do not accept or attend, to any of His Majesty's Justices of Peace, in the county of Worcester in England, to take the proof to be adduced by both parties at Bewdley, in said county, and to Henry Davidson and John Spottiswoode, solicitors-at-law, at London, or any of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace in the bounds, to take the proof to be adduced by both parties at Battersea, within three miles of London; and to any of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace in the bounds of England, to take the proof to be adduced by both parties,' &c. "A commission was in terms of this interlocutor issued, and witnesses were examined both in England and in Scotland. And the cause having been argued in full written pleadings, termed Memorials, the following interlocutor was pronounced:† On report of the Lord Justice-Clerk, and having advised the proof and memorials hinc inde, in respect it appears from the proof adduced, that the art of making the oil of vitriol from a mixture of sul.. phur and saltpetre, in vessels of lead, was at the time and before the date of the letters-patent, in favour of the suspenders (i. e. appellants) known to and actually practised by different persons IN ENGLAND; THEREFORE the Lords find the letters orderly proceeded, and decern.'

"The respondents have subjoined to this case the opinions delivered by the Judges,§ when the interlocutor, just recited, was pronounced, and to these opinions they now respectfully solicit the attention of your Lordships.

"It will be observed, that the interlocutor of 10th March, 1773, allowed to the parties a proof of their respective averments before answer,' that is to say, before determining the relevancy and legal effect of the averments, and it was upon these points that the written argument was ordered and submitted to the Court below, after the proof had been concluded. And accordingly, by the final judgment of 10th March, 1774, their Lordships found, first, That the averment of Stirling and Company, as to the prior public use in England, was established; and secondly, That that fact was of itself relevant and sufficient in law to entitle the Court to find the letters orderly proceeded —that is, to dissolve the injunction which had been granted against the use of the manufacture by Stirling and Company.

*March 10, 1773.

March 10, 1774.

& Vide Appendix.

"Roebuck and Garbett brought the case under the review of your Lordships' House by Appeal, and in their Case they maintained the identical arguments which were maintained by the appellant in the Court below in this case, as to the irrelevancy and inadmissibility of any evidence of prior public use of a manufacture in England, to invalidate a patent for the same manufacture taken out in Scotland. On turning to the Appeal case for Roebuck and Garbett, your Lordships will find that they founded on the fact that a patent under the Great Seal of England does not extend to Scotland, while it was quite common for a person to apply to have a patent taken in England extended to Scotland, in order to secure the advantage of the discovery in both countries- England and Scotland, in the eye of law, being foreign countries in this particular.' 'Had the law stood otherwise, no useful foreign invention could ever have been introduced into this country; the law of Scotland considers every place, not subject to the jurisdiction of its own courts, a foreign country, and though the law, relative to patents, be the same in both parts of the United Kingdom, yet, in applying that law, England is considered a foreign country to Scotland. And in view of this distinction, as well as in conformity to the uniform practice, a clause is inserted in the present patent, that it shall be void when it does appear that the said invention, • Quoad ejus publicum in illa parte dict. regni nostri Magnæ Britanniæ Scotia vocat. usum et exercitum non esse novam inventionem vel a dictis Doctore Roe

buck et Samuele Garbett, ut predicitur non esse inventam vel excogitatam.' 'So standing the law, the appellants contended, that they were entitled to enjoy the benefit of their patent, unless the respondents proved, that before the date of the patent the manufacture of oil or spirits of vitriol in lead was publicly practised by others in Scotland; that a private or clandestine manufacture in small quantities will not answer the purpose, because that invention, which is kept secret from the public, or is locked up in the breast of the inventor, is, so far as respects the public, no invention at all, and the man who first makes the art or invention public, is alone entitled from the State to the advantages accruing from it.'

"Then there follows an argument on the evidence of the fact of the previous use and practice of the manufacture in England, upon which neither the Court below nor your Lordships entertained any doubt whatever. And in their second reason of Appeal,† Roebuck and Garbett expressed themselves thus:-'No proof has been brought by the respondents, either of the discovery or practice, by any other than the appellants, of this invention in Scotland, (which alone can avail them); and with respect to the proof of the prior practice of the same mode in England, that proof, were it much stronger, and more unexceptionable than it is, cannot serve the respondents, because England, in the present question, is to be considered as a foreign country with respect to Scotland, and, in that view, the appellants are entitled to the full benefit of the patent, even though they had not been the first discoverers, but only the first importers of the invention from England to Scotland.' Such were the grounds on which an alteration of the judgment of the Court of Session was sought from your Lordships.

"On the other hand, Stirling and Company contended, that Dr. Roebuck's patent was void, on the grounds pleaded in the Court below, but more especially because, at the date of the letters-patent, and for a long time prior thereto, the particular_manufacture was known to and had been publicly practised by others in England, and they founded on the Sixth Section of the Statute of King James as applicable to the species facti that there occurred― that Dr. Roebuck was not the true and first inventor of the manufaeturethat it had been used by others within the realm, and therefore, since the Union of the two Kingdoms, (and they quoted the sixth article of the Treaty of Union,) the use and practice of the manufacture in England, was a use and practice within the Realm or Kingdom of Great Britain. "The judgment pronounced by your Lordships' House is as follows:

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'May 27th, 1774. Ordered and adjudged, that the Appeal be dismissed, and that the interlocutors therein complained of be affirmed, for other reasons, as well as the reasons specified therein.'

"Now, the reason on which the judgment of the Court of Session proceeds, whereby the injunction against Stirling and Company was dissolved, and Roebuck's patent found void, is exclusively that it was proved that the art of making oil of vitriol from a mixture of sulphur and saltpetre, in vessels of lead, was at the time, and before the date of the letters-patent, in favour of the appellants, known to and actually practised by different persons in England; and while it was by your Lordships thought that the judgment might be supported on other grounds, as well as on the ratio assigned in the judgment itself, you, at the same time, expressly affirmed the ratio therein assigned as well as the judgment.

"It is scarcely possible to suppose a case more exactly in point to the present than Roebuck v. Stirling. It was argued by the most eminent counsel in Scotland, as well as at the bar of England; and, as has been already said, no adverse judgment of any of the Courts in either country has been discovered. On the contrary, the books are not without traces confirmatory of the law being settled as it is contended for by the respondents, as will be shewn immediately.

"In the course of the argument in the Court below, in Roebuck's case, reference was made to Edgeberry v. Stephens, Saldkell's Reports, vol. ii. p. 447. Saldkell's words are: A grant of monopoly may be to the first inventor by the 21st James I.; and if the invention be new in England, a patent may be granted, though the thing was practised beyond seas before; for the statute speaks of new manufactures within this realm; so that, if they be new here, it is within the statute; for the act intended to encourage new devices, useful to the kingdom, and whether learned by travel or by study, is the same thing. Agreed by Holt and Pollexfen, in the case of Edgeberry and Stephens.'

"But it is manifest that neither the words nor the spirit of the judgment in the case of Edgeberry, could apply to Roebuck v. Stirling, or to the present case. For it applied only to the importation into this country of an invention which had been practised beyond seas before, and was learnt by travel. But surely the appellant will not maintain that there is a sea between England and Scotland, or that, in the sense of the judgment in Edgeberry's case, England and Scotland are to each other foreign nations.

"On the other hand, in the pleadings in the Court below, for Stirling and Company, a case was referred to as having occurred in England, which went clearly to support the view taken of the law, both in the Court below and by your Lordship's House. It is the case of Clark v. Laycock, and was referred to by Lord Gardenston in one part of his opinion, as given in the Appendix.* His Lordship says: "In Clark v. Laycock, decided in the King's Bench, Clark had a patent for both kingdoms. His patent for England was set aside on the evidence of Scotch witnesses, that the art had been practised in Scotland before the date of Clark's patent.' From the pleadings in the Court below, it appears that Clark had obtained a patent in common form, both for England and Scotland, for making leather snuff-boxes. Founding on the patent obtained in England, he brought an action in the Court of King's Bench against Laycock, for making snuff-boxes of the same kind, and consequently for infringing the patent. The cause was tried before Lord Mansfield on 25th April, 1766. Laycock's defence was, that the same manufacture of snuff-boxes had been known and practised in Scotland before the date of Clark's patent for England; and the fact having been proved by one Scotch witness, a verdict was returned for the defendant, with £70 of costs. The Judgment Roll in this cause is to be found amongst the Records which are now preserved in the Rolls' Chapel, under date Hilary Term 1766, No. 949, et seq.; and the judgment was carried into effect against Clark in Scotland, by a decree interponed by the Court of Session.

*App. p. 2.

"Furthermore, in the celebrated case of the King v. Arkwright,* where the patent was ultimately set aside on the ground of want of novelty, evidence was given among other instances of prior use, of the use of his machine in Scotland, without any exception or objection, that such evidence was irrevelant. In the case of Tennant's Patent,† the validity of which was tried by Lord Ellenborough, on the 23d of September, 1802, the patent was set aside mainly on the ground, that the secret of the invention was communicated to Mr. Tennant by a chemist in Glasgow; so that this last case is also a direct authority against the proposition, that the two countries stand in the relationship of foreign countries to each other, in reference to patents, inasmuch as had such been the case, Mr. Tennant would have been the first inventor, as in Edgeberry and Stevens.

"In numerous instances, Parliament, since the union of the two countries, has, in legislating upon patent rights, completely identified and recognized the United Kingdom as one Realm, and in accordance with the Articles of Union, has extended the terms of patents, by one statute for the United Kingdom in many cases, although the original grant was only taken for England, and the respondents refer to the several acts for amending the laws of patents, where the only difference in the enactments with reference to the two countries, arises out of their different forms of proceeding, not making any distinction in the extent of the rights and privileges of the lieges of either country.

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"In conclusion, the respondents beg leave to make the following quotation from Professor Bell's Commentaries, on the Principles of Mercantile Jurisprudence.' Having previously stated that, since the Union, the same law in regard to patents and the royal prerogative applies to both sections of the United Kingdom, he says, ' If one have discovered and brought into use what another has only discovered in his closet, the former is entitled to the patent without distinguishing who was the first inventor, or whether the merit of the discovery may not have been due to both. If one have imported a discovery from abroad, although he has no merit as a discoverer, he is, on the doctrine of the law of patent, entitled to the privilege. This is grounded on the words of the statute, which gives to the King the power of granting a privilege for any new manufactures within the realm.' Whether this would rule the case of a patent taken out in England, for an invention disclosed in a specification then recorded, but for which no patent was taken out in Scotland, may be doubted. It would rather appear that this would be regarded as a publication within the realm, and the manufacture as therefore not new within the realm, to the effect of barring a patent for the manufacture in Scotland. If so, it does not appear how either the original inventor or a stranger could, after such publication, apply for a Scottish patent. Accordingly, in practice, this danger seems to be understood, and provision made against it, by allowing a longer time for the specification, where it is intended to have a patent for both countries.'

(To be concluded in our next Number.)

(Signed) ROBERT WHIGHAM,

TYPE DISTRIBUTING AND

COMPOSING MACHINES.

In this age of mechanical invention, there are few branches of the manufactures or arts, which may be considered safe from the revolutionizing hand of the ingenious mechanician, but had we been asked to point out one branch of industry less likely than another to be disturbed by the encroachments of machinery upon

* Davies's Patent Cases, p. 134 and † 429.

294 Type Distributing and Composing Machines. hand labor, we should certainly have mentioned the compositor's art,-as the speed obtained by the workman, in arranging type, seems scarcely possible to be exceeded by machinery, considering the delicacy of the movements and the mental qualifications required for composition.

The credit of being the first to attempt setting-up type by mechanical means, must be awarded to DR. CHURCH,* who patented his invention in the year 1822; since which date, many improvements have been effected, both in the distributing and arranging of typographical characters.

The last of these improvements was patented by Messrs. CLAY and ROSENBORG, in April last, and the specification was inrolled a few days since.

Having closely inspected these gentlemen's machinery, for distributing and composing type, whilst quiescent and in operation, we can pronounce a decided opinion as to the merits of the invention.

The distributing machine is a very simple contrivance.—The type for distribution is placed in a galley, and lowered from thence, line by line, into a sliding carriage, moved by hand, in which it is conveyed over proper apertures, leading to the receptacle where each separate type is to be deposited. The carriage is stopped over the aperture corresponding to the first letter in the line to be distributed, by raising a key; and at the same time that the carriage is arrested, a single type is pushed out by a small lever, into the aperture below. The type having descended to the bottom, is pushed, by revolving excentrics, along grooves or channels, formed in a metal table, from which it is removed, in separate lines or columns, to the composing-machine, when required.

The types are arranged in the composing-machine in vertical columns, on each side of a long narrow groove, cut in a metal plate, and are pushed out from the bottom of the columns on to a travelling endless band, by the depression of keys, similar to those in a piano-forte, which are connected to the pushers. This band runs along the narrow groove in the metal plate, and carries the type to a receiver, placed at one end of the machine,

*See Vol. VI., p. 225, of our First Series.

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