tains a proviso, that the inventor should take apprentices during the last seven years of the term, and teach them the knowledge and mystery of the invention. Further, it was unjust to the public to confer powers excluding them from participating in an invention without minutely defining and explaining what the invention was. These and other inconveniences were effectually obviated by a proviso introduced into all letters patent since the end of Anne's reign, requiring the grantee particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of his invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed. This proviso, which gave rise to the specification, not only imports two conditions, the noncompliance with either of which will be ground for avoiding the letters patent; but if both be properly complied with, effect is given to the conditions of validity at common law, and under the statute, since the invention really claimed being known, it may be further ascertained whether it is new and useful, and whether the grantee is the true and first inventor.

it

The specification may fail to satisfy the proviso in either of the two following respects: first, it may not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the invention; that is, what is intended to be claimed may be left in uncertainty; or, secondly, may not describe and ascertain in what manner the invention is to be performed, with sufficient particularity to enable persons properly qualified, to practise the invention. In an advanced state of the arts and manufactures, inventors are peculiarly liable to fall into both these errors; the changes marking the progress of invention at such periods, will generally be small, but the requisites of the proviso will, nevertheless, frequently not be complied with, unless a comprehensive view of the whole manufacture be given and many parts or processes described, in respect of which no claim is intended to be made; but if such explanatory matter be not disclaimed, or if the claim be not confined to the change, however minute, which is the essence of the invention, the nature thereof will not be ascertained with the requisite certainty. Again, inasmuch as ordinary and wellknown processes or parts need not be described, an inventor, or a person well acquainted with the subject, is apt to presume too much on the knowledge of others, and so fail in the second respect to satisfy the proviso.

A review of the cases will show that whatever the form of the objection to a patent, the real defect has generally been in the specification, since it has very rarely happened that an invention has not, in fact, existed, in respect of which, if pro

perly described and claimed, a patent might not have been sustained.

The specifications in the following pages, present instances of both the defects just alluded to; and the practical operation of Lord Brougham's act, whereby some defects may be amended, shows the truth of the preceding statement as to their character, for, in a great many cases since that statute, in which the patentee has failed in the first instance on a trial at law, he has, nevertheless, succeeded in amending the specification, so as to secure the enjoyment of the substantial part of his invention.

The particular subject-matter or object of the application of these general principles is defined and pointed out by the statute. It is not for every invention that letters patent can be granted, other means of protection being provided for some, as for instance, for designs for articles of manufacture; but the inventions must satisfy the words " any manner of new manufactures" as defined and explained by the subsequent cases. And in determining what species of invention is within the intent and meaning of the statute, it will not be necessary to rely on those patents only which have occupied the attention of the courts of law, but regard should also be had to those which have been confirmed or extended by special acts of parliament, or on the recommendation of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and to those also which have benefitted the trade of the country, which have been acquiesced in by the public, or have been enjoyed by the grantees without effective resistance throughout their whole term, and in respect of which considerable sums of money have been paid by licensees.

The specifications contained in the following pages will afford the means, not only of ascertaining the subject-matter of those letters patent which have occupied the attention of the courts of law, of the legislature, and of the committee of the privy council, but will show to inventors the nature and requisites of those instruments upon which, as experience shows, the validity of their patent will most frequently depend.

It would be foreign to the present occasion to dwell in any detail on the mixed questions of fact and of law which occur in the application of the preceding principles, or on those which relate to the granting of letters patent-to the remedies for infringement to the pleadings, and notice of objections under the statute to amendment by disclaimer and memorandum of alteration-to the confirmation of existing, or the granting of new letters patent, on the recommendation of the judicial com

mittee of the Privy Council-to the forms and effect of deeds of license, the assignment of shares in a patent, and the partnerships to which they give rise; the cases on these and other subjects may be readily referred to by means of the index; the practical proceedings connected with these matters, together with the requisite and usual forms and instruments, will be found under their proper titles in my work on the Law and Practice of Letters Patent for Inventions.

The increased protection now afforded to patentees in the enjoyment of their exclusive privileges, has given additional security and value to property in patents, and the consequence is, that questions of a novel nature, or to which attention has hitherto been but little directed, are occurring-for instance, as to the authority of letters patent in many of the colonies and possessions abroad, as to the import of the words within this realm' in the statute of monopolies, and as to the validity of letters patent for England, Scotland, Ireland, the colonies, plantations and possessions abroad, in respect of inventions known and in use at the time of the grant in some place to which the authority of the crown extends-the determination of which interesting and curious questions must depend on the principles to be derived from the general tenour of authorities, and on considerations of public policy.

The earlier cases and statutes are arranged in the following pages in chronological order, and this arrangement will be found materially to elucidate the origin and progress of the law of patents when in its infancy and until the close of the last and the commencement of the present century, since which period the principles applicable to that subject have been well defined. With respect to the more recent cases contained in the following pages, the same plan of arrangement could not be pursued; the various proceedings on each patent follow immediately after the specification in the order in which they actually occurred.

The recent statute has given rise to proceedings of great importance to the public as well as to inventors, for the confirmation and prolongation of patent rights; and the following pages contain a report of all the cases on those subjects which have been heard before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

April, 1844.

T. W.

NAMES OF CASES.

Where several references occur in the following List, the first after the name is generally that of the principal Report of the case.

Aberdeen, Incorporate Trades of, v. Ma- Bowman, Collinge v.

Bowman. Taylor, 292, 288, 290, 291, Crossley v. Beverley (N. P.), 106, 146,

Darcy v. Allin (Alleyne), 1, 5, 26, 29, Hare, Taylor v.