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Chemical Inventions.-The same distinction, which, it has been seen, is made between mechanical applications brought about by an obvious exercise of the inventive faculty and those where it is scarcely appreciable, holds good with regard to the applications of the chemical properties of matter. Thus, in Calvert v. Ashburn (Pract. Mech. Journal, vol. ii. 2nd ser. 97), it was held that the application of caustic alkalies for the purpose of dissolving the gluten contained in flour employed in the manufacture of size could not be the subject of a patent, inasmuch as caustic alkalies had been previously used for the purpose of dissolving gluten in the manufacture of starch. See also the observations of Lord Hatherley and Lord Blackburn in Bailey v. Roberton (L. R. 3 App. Cas. 1055, 1073, 1079).

This case, in which the amount of invention was adjudged too small to support the patent, should be compared with that of Young v. Fernie (4 Giff. 597, 612), a suit for an injunction to restrain the infringement of a patent for obtaining paraffine oil by the distillation of bituminous coals, wherein it was proved that previously to the plaintiff's invention paraffine oil had been extracted from bituminous shale by distillation. It was argued for the defendants, on the authority of Regina v. Cutler, Brook v. Aston, and such cases, that bituminous shale being a substance analogous to bituminous coal, the invention of the plaintiff was not in law the subject of a patent. But V. C. Stuart said that there seemed to be no analogy between the cases cited and the present one. And in giving judgment in favour of the validity of the patent, his Honour observed, Inventions in mechanics are as widely different from inventions in economical chemistry as the laws and operations of mechanical forces differ from the laws of chemical affinities, and the results of analysis and experiment in the comparatively infant science of chemistry, with its boundless field of undiscovered laws and undiscovered substances. This observation, as applied to reported cases, will strike the mind of every lawyer who has even a slight elementary knowledge

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of both sciences.' (See also the case of Muntz v. Foster, ante.)

In Hills v. London Gas Light Company (5 H. & N. 369), an action upon a patent for the purification of coal gas by the use of hydrated oxides of iron, it was argued that, as the property which these oxides possess of combining with sulphuretted hydrogen, the deleterious part of unpurified coal gas, was a perfectly well-known property, the mere application of the oxides to remove sulphuretted hydrogen from gas could not be the subject of a patent. The Court of Exchequer held that if a man were simply to say that he claimed the use of hydrated oxides of iron for the purification of gas, without saying how they were to be applied, the objection might possibly be well founded; but as the patentee had shown how the oxides were to be used, the objection failed. (Comp. Ormson v. Clarke, 13 C. B. N. s. 337; in error, 14 C. B. n. s. 475.)

Patents for Improvements on Inventions the Subject of Existing Patents.-Inventors after obtaining a patent frequently discover that their invention is capable of considerable improvement, and they think it desirable to take out a second patent for the improvements.

In Lister v. Leather (8 E. & B. 1004), it was held that a second patent for an improvement on an invention which is the subject of a previous patent afterwards assigned to the second patentee is not void as being contrary to public policy. And the same rule holds good in regard to a second patent obtained by the same inventor.

A patented invention which was afterwards greatly improved by a second patent obtained by the same inventor is not on that account thrown open to the world. (Thomson v. Batty, 6 R. P. C. 100.) Nor is a patent defeated because later inventions improved the articles produced, and they ceased to be made in accordance with the directions of the specification. (Edison & Swan Co. v. Holland, 6 R. P. C. 243.)

CHAPTER VI.

WHO MAY BE A PATENTEE.

By the fourth section of the Patents Act of 1883, any person, whether a British subject or not, is empowered to make application for a patent. Two or more persons may make a joint application, and a patent may be granted to them jointly. By the fifth section of that Act, an application must contain a declaration to the effect that the applicant is in possession of an invention, whereof he, or in the case of a joint application, one or more of the applicants, claims or claim to be the true and first inventor or inventors.

No application will be entertained at the Patent Office unless the person or persons claiming to be the true and first inventor or inventors are applicants (Marshall's Application, 5 R. P. C. 661), but other persons who are noninventors may join in the application, and in that case the patent will be issued to all the applicants, who will be joint patentees. (Patents Act, 1885, s. 5.) Although there is no form enabling an inventor and an incorporated company to apply jointly for a patent, this may be done, since by sect. 117 of the Act of 1883 'person' includes a body corporate.

For a long series of years the strict letter of the statute of James has been so far relaxed as to allow persons simply importing an invention from a foreign country into this realm to obtain a patent in respect of it, provided that such an invention is new and useful, the administrators of the law always reading the word 'inventor,' in the statute, as embracing an importer. I must look on it (said Jessel, M. R.) as a sort of anomalous decision, not depending on any principle whatever, which has acquired by time and recognition the force of law.' The first decision on this point

since the Statute of Monopolies, was in the case of Edgebery v. Stevens, to be found in the second volume of Salkeld's Reports,' p. 477: If the invention be new in England a patent may be granted, though the thing was practised beyond sea before; for the statute speaks of new manufactures within this realm; so that if it 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, it is the same thing.'

In Carpenter v. Smith (1 W. P. C. 535), Lord Abinger said, 'A man has a right to a patent not only for his own original invention, but he has a right to a patent if he is the first person who brings into England an invention which is used abroad and not known in England.'

Previous to the Act of 1883 it had been decided (Chappell v. Purday, 14 M. & W. 318) that an alien might be the grantee of a patent; and In re Wirth's Patent (L. R. 12 Ch. D. 303), that a patent might be granted to an alien resident abroad for an invention communicated to him by another alien also resident abroad, but Form A of the Patents Rules, 1890, renders it necessary that the applicant for a communication patent must be resident in the United Kingdom (see p. 395). In Beard v. Egerton (3 C. B. Rep. 97), it was held that the grant might be taken either in the alien's name or in the name of a British subject in trust for him.

It has long been a common practice, which the new Act has not abrogated, to grant patents to British subjects resident in Great Britain in respect of inventions communicated from abroad. If the grantee is the agent of the foreign inventor, the letters patent are subsequently assigned to the latter or his nominee. But in these cases it is necessary for the applicant to state in his application that the subjectmatter was communicated to him from abroad. (Milligan v. Marsh, 2 Jur. N. s. 1083.) (See the form of application A 1 in the second schedule of the Patents Rules, 1890.)

By the International Convention and section 103 of the Patents Act of 1883 a foreign patentee has an absolute right of priority for his invention for a period of seven months from

the date of his foreign application, notwithstanding any intermediate publication or use of the invention in this country. A British patent under the Convention will only be granted to the person who made the foreign application. It will not be granted to an agent. (Shallenberger's Application, 6 R. P. C. 550; Carez's Application, 6 R. P. C. 552.)

A British subject has never been permitted to obtain a patent for an invention derived from another British subject residing in the United Kingdom, and it seems doubtful whether a valid patent could be obtained in respect of an invention communicated by an alien permanently domiciled here.

No objection can be taken to a patent on the ground that one of the grantees is an infant. (Chearin v. Walker, L. R. 5 Ch. D. 858.) And there can be no doubt that female inventors, whether married or single, are entitled to the grant of a patent.

In consequence of the decision of the Court in Marsden v. Saville Street Foundry Co. (L. R. 3 Ex. D. 203), a clause (sect. 34) was introduced into the Patents Act of 1883, by which it was provided that if a person possessed of an invention dies without making application for a patent for the invention, application may be made by, and a patent for the invention granted to, his legal representative; but every such application must be made within six months of the decease of such person, and must contain a declaration by the legal representative that he believes such person to be or to have been the true and first inventor of the invention.

By the twelfth section of the same Act (sub-section 3 b) it is enacted that if the applicant for a patent dies before the expiration of fifteen months from the date of application (and before the patent shall have been sealed), the patent may be granted to his legal representative, and sealed at any time within twelve months after the applicant's death.

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The word 'patentee' as used in the Patents Acts signifies the person for the time being entitled to the benefit of the patent' (s. 46 of the Act of 1883).

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