Litelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 69 



hold that it is an invalid patent, for want of coincidence between 

 its title and the specification. To prepare a title to a patent, it 

 must not be made so clear as to call the attention of rivals, and 

 enable them to discover the subject, nor so obscure as to incur the 

 danger that a court of justice may afterwards rule, that it is an im- 

 perfect definition or title of the invention described in the specifi- 

 cation. 



Do you see any remedy for that inconvenience? — The remedy is 

 obvious : to make the right of the patentee secure from the time he 

 makes his application ; on condition of his then lodging a paper of 

 the heads of his invention — a statement of the principle on which 

 he founds his invention j also the final specification and description 

 of the means of executing the invention, should be engrossed in 

 the patent itself, so that the title of the patent, instead of being 

 the only means of reference between the two documents, should 

 become a mere indorsement, and a matter of no importance: the 

 latter is done in France. 



If a person having made an invention of the same nature as that 

 for which a patent is sought, and has carried it on secretly, is it 

 supposed that the previous secret exercise of the invention will 

 vitiate the patent? — It is decided that the secret exercise of an in- 

 vention would not vitiate the patent ; but it is assumed that the 

 person so carrying it on secretly, would inevitably reveal the secret 

 the moment that he knew that a patent was applied for, and a dis- 

 closure of the secret by him, in the interim between the date of the 

 application and the date of the patent, would vitiate the patent ; 

 that is the reason for leaving the patent open to destruction by a 

 publication of the invention, between the date of application and the 

 date of the patent ; viz. that those persons who have been previously 

 secretly practising the same invention, may have an opportunity of 

 publishing it, so as to destroy the patent. But publications from 

 the fear of an expected patent rarely take place ; because, when 

 a person applies for a patent, he does not declare himself so clearly 

 by the title, that the person could be certain that it is identical with 

 the previous secret practice. 



Is it supposed tiiatthe exclusive right given to thepatenteewillbe 

 valid against another party previously exercising the same invention 

 secretly ? — It is generally assumed to be so, but I am not aware of 

 any decision upon that point, and it could scarcely come to the test, 

 because the same secrecy that would enable him to have hitherto 

 concealed his process, would also prevent any legal proofs of his 

 having infringed the patent ; it is exceedingly difficult to obtain 

 sufficient proof of infringement. Many patents are infringed for 

 years together, without it being possible to obtain any redress, from 

 the difficulty of proving the exercise of the identical invention. 



Will you explain what protection it is to a person applying for a 

 patent to lodge a caveat?— In general, it is no protectmn whatever, 

 if a patentee, after having disclosed his invention to some agent, or 

 associate, or patron, before applying for a patent, has a suspicion 

 that such person might be applying for a patent himself, at an earlier 



period 



