THE PROTECTION OF SCIENCE BY PATENT 553 



great advantage, the originator of the discovery could obtain no 

 such benefit as he might hope to have obtained from the granting 

 of a patent. 



Apart from the particular example, there is a further reason 

 why a discoverer, however meritorious he may be, cannot become 

 a patentee. The Statute of Monopolies, as already alluded to, 

 restricts protection to a " manufacture," and although the word 

 manufacture has gradually been moulded by the judges so as to 

 include manufacturing operations, processes and articles, it has 

 not been held to cover the very highly ingenious, original, and 

 meritorious operations of the purely scientific man which do 

 not result in a manufacture. When we approach the matter 

 more closely with the view to ascertaining what practical steps 

 ought to be taken to remedy the grievances in question, we find 

 two distinct issues in connection with the present system of 

 granting patent protection, viz. : 



(1) Whether the originator of a scientific discovery by com- 

 municating the results of his research to a learned society ought 

 thereby to lose the right to apply subsequently for a patent ; and 



(2) W T hether the protection awarded to new manufactures 

 ought not to be extended to other applications of scientific 

 discoveries which may be of utility to the public. 



The question touched upon in The Times whether medical 

 etiquette should so far be relaxed as to permit a practitioner to 

 obtain a patent concerns the medical profession alone and falls 

 outside the present inquiry. 



(1) Communications to Learned Societies. — As previously stated, 

 if an individual before the date of applying for a patent com- 

 municates his invention to the public or to any section of it, the 

 invention is henceforth devoid of the element of novelty which 

 the law demands in an invention which is to be protected. It 

 is immaterial whether the invention is published piece-meal or 

 at a stroke. Provided a divulgence takes place in any way 

 whatever, the invention is no longer new in the eye of patent 

 law and, with one or two exceptions which need not be entered 

 upon, is incapable of being protected by a patent grant. The 

 scientific investigator who reads a paper or series of papers 

 before a learned society, for instance, and gives an account of 

 his discoveries will be precluded from receiving a patent which 

 is unexceptionable. Not only is this the case, but he is even 

 denied the exclusive enjoyment of obvious novel applications of 



