payment of a stamp duty of 50l. before the expiration of the third year. The patent was dated on February 26, 1855, and the third year's stamp duty was paid on February 26, 1858.

Under the ninety-eighth section of the Act of 1883, whenever the last day for paying a fee at the Patent Office shall happen to fall on Christmas Day, Good Friday, or on a Saturday or Sunday, or on a day observed as a holiday at the Bank of England, or on any day observed as a public fast or thanksgiving, the fee may be paid on the day next following any of these days.

Where any prescribed payment has not been made in due time, and no application has been made to the Comptroller for an enlargement of the time, and the patent has consequently become void, nothing short of a special Act of Parliament can restore its validity. But such Acts are more difficult to obtain since the Act of 1883 came into operation than formerly.

In case clerical errors should have been made in Letters Patent, the Master of the Rolls had and still has power to correct them (Re Nickels' Patent, 4 Bea. 563; Re Gare's Patent, L. R. 26 Ch. D. 105); but the application must be made within a reasonable time (Re Blamond's Patent, 3 L. T. N. s. 800). In the case of Adam's Patent (1 W. R. 259), a doubt having been expressed as to the jurisdiction of the Master of the Rolls, the order was made by the Lord Chancellor. But now the powers of amendment given to the Comptroller by section 18 of the Patents Act 1883 seem extensive enough to cover clerical errors in patents.

In the event of a patent being lost or destroyed, or if its non-production should be accounted for to the satisfaction of the Comptroller, he is empowered by the thirty-seventh section of the new Act to cause a duplicate thereof to be sealed.

In the case of Feather v. The Queen (6 B. & S. 257), it was decided that the Crown has a right to the free use of any patented invention (see the case more fully stated at

the end of the chapter on Infringements); and this decision applies to all patents granted before the commencement of the Act of 1883, or on applications then pending; but as to patents granted afterwards, they will have the same effect against the Crown as against a subject (section 27). The officers or authorities administering any department of the service of the Crown, their agents, contractors, or others are to be entitled to use any invention for the service of the Crown on terms to be agreed upon with the approval of the Treasury; or if an agreement cannot be effected, then on such terms as the Treasury, after hearing all parties interested, shall settle.

By the forty-fourth section of the Patents Act of 1883 the Secretary of State for War is empowered to acquire by purchase or gift the benefit of any inventions of improvements in munitions of war, and of any patent obtained for the same, and to prevent the disclosure of such inventions.

The effect of the forty-fifth section is that patents issued or applied for before the commencement of the Act will not have the benefit of the provision binding the Crown, nor will they come under the liability imposed by the clauses relating to compulsory licences. But in all other respects, including the proceedings for amendments, prolongations, and revocations, the Act of 1883 will extend to patents granted before the commencement of the Act, or on applications then pending, except slight differences on the payment of the annual fees. (See Appendix.)

By the thirty-fifth section of the Act of 1883 a patent granted to the true and first inventor is not to be invalidated by an application in fraud of him, or by provisional protection obtained thereon, or by any use or publication of the invention, subsequent to that fraudulent application during the period of provisional protection.

The 113th section of the Patents Act of 1883 repeals all the statutes described in the third schedule of the Act, but goes on to enact that the repeal shall not affect the past operation of any of those statutes. Now, the twenty-fifth

section of the Patents Act of 1852 declares that any British patent which bears date after a foreign patent for the same invention (being a foreign invention) shall be void at the expiration of such foreign patent. Consequently, any British patent granted before the commencement of the Act of 1883, and standing in this relation to a foreign patent, will be void by the operation of these two clauses, in case the foreign patent shall have expired before the commencement of the Act of 1883. That is to say, since the earlier Act has already rendered the British patent void, that 'past operation of the Act will not be affected by its repeal by the Act of 1883. But if the twenty-fifth section of the earlier Act at the time of its repeal has not had an invalidating operation on a patent, then the British patent will not be touched, and the clause in question will have no effect. As regards patents which have been obtained on applications pending at the commencement of the new Act, it is presumed that the third subsection of the forty-fifth section of that Act will effectually protect them from the operation of the twenty-fifth section of the Act of 1852.

The operation of sect. 113 on patents granted under the Act of 1852 was considered with reference to other points in the cases of Singer v. Stassen (1 R. P. C. 121) and Brandon's Patent (1 R. P. C. 154).

It was held by Baron Huddleston in the case of Nordenfeldt v. Gardner (1 R. P. C. 10 and 73), that in order to invalidate a British patent on the ground of the invention being a foreign invention for which a Belgian patent had been obtained prior to the date of the British patent and had lapsed, the foreign patent must have been not merely applied for, but actually obtained before the British patent, and this, although the foreign patent when granted bore a date earlier than that of the British patent.

When a patent is granted to two or more persons, each may use the invention without being liable to account to the other. (Mathers v. Green, 1 Law Rep. Ch. Ap. 29, before Lord Cranworth, C.) See, however, the earlier case of Hancock v. Bewley (Johns. 601), as to the rights of parties

where Letters Patent are vested in trustees for two or more persons as tenants in common.

In case of the death of the patentee intestate before the expiration of the patent, his interest under it passes to his personal representatives, and not to his heir. In case of bankruptcy the property in the patent will pass to the trustee or assignee, like the rest of the bankrupt patentee's personal assets. (Bloxam v. Elsee, 9 D. & R. 215.)

N

CHAPTER XIII.

AMENDMENTS OF SPECIFICATIONS.

It has been shown that where a material part of an alleged invention is not new or not useful, the patent is altogether invalid; and that if a patentee claims by his specification more than he is entitled to, the patent is likewise void. The fatal effect of an inconsistency between the title and the specification, or between the provisional and the complete specification, has also been pointed out. To remedy a law which in many cases bore unjustly upon patentees, the Act of 5 and 6 Wm. IV. c. 83 empowered a patentee to take steps for altering his specification by disclaimer. That Act, however, as well as other Acts relating to disclaimers, were repealed by the Act of 1883, which substituted the following provisions for those of previous statutes. By the eighteenth section it is enacted that—

(1) An applicant or a patentee may from time to time, by request in writing left at the Patent Office, seek leave to amend his specification, including drawings forming part thereof, by way of disclaimer, correction, or explanation, stating the nature of such amendment, and his reasons for the same.

(2) The request and the nature of such proposed amendment shall be advertised in the prescribed manner, and at any time within one month from its first advertisement any person may give notice at the Patent Office of opposition to the amendment.

(3) Where such notice is given the Comptroller shall give notice of the opposition to the person making the request, and shall hear and decide the case subject to an appeal to the law officer.