The President's Address. 289 



freely gives, law and custom as freely take away, or render 

 void. Fees, varying from £200 to £500, are demanded from 

 the inventor ; and the gift thus so highly estimated by the 

 giver bears the great seal of England. The inventor must 

 now describe his invention with legal precision. If he errs 

 in the slightest point, — if his description is not sufficiently 

 intelligible, — if the smallest portion of his invention has been 

 used before, — or if he has incautiously allowed his secret to 

 be made known to two, or even to one individual, he will lose 

 in a court of law his money and his privilege. Should his 

 patent escape unscathed from the fiery ordeal, it often hap- 

 pens that the patentee has not been remunerated during the 

 fourteen years of his term. In this case the State is willing 

 to extend his right for five or seven years more ; but he can 

 obtain this extension only by the expensive and uncertain 

 process of an act of Parliament — a boon which is seldom 

 asked, and which, through rival influence, has often been 

 withheld. Such was the patent law twenty years ago ; but 

 since that time it has received some important ameliorations ; 

 and though the British Association did not interfere as a 

 body, yet some of its members applied energetically on the 

 subject to some of the more influential individuals in Lord 

 Grey's Government, and the result of this was, two acts of 

 Parliament passed in 1835 and 1839, intituled * Acts for 

 amending the law touching letters patent for inventions.' 

 Without referring to another important act for registering 

 designs, which had the efi^ect of withdrawing from the grasp 

 of the patent laws a great number of useful inventions, 

 depending principally on form, I shall notice only the valu- 

 able provisions of the two acts above mentioned, — acts which 

 we owe solely to Lord Brougham. By the first of these acts 

 the patentee is permitted to disclaim any part either of the 

 title of his invention or of the specification of it, or to make 

 any alteration on the title or specification. The same act 

 gives the Privy Council the power of confirming any patent, 

 or of granting a new one, when a patent had been taken out 

 for an invention which the patentee believed to be new, but 

 which was found to have been known before, but not publicly 

 and generally used. By the same act, too, the power of 



VOL. XLIX. NO. XCVIII. — OCTOBER 1850. T 



