Intelligence and Miscellaneous A rticles. 7 1 



the applicant is no way fixed to what he does intend to specify. 

 There have been some speculators who the instant that they 

 find out that a person of talent is occupied with an invention, 

 apply for a patent, with a title sufficiently general to cover the 

 invention ; and having thus got the start of the inventor, if 

 they can get at the invention before the time of specifying, they 

 have a good chance of making it their own; for even if the real 

 inventor makes opposition, the Attorney General can rarely be 

 convinced of the identity of the same invention, when differently 

 explained by two parties, with different models or drawings, and 

 when one party has an interest in disguising the similarity; or that 

 party may purposely describe quite a different invention to the At- 

 torney General, who keeps no record ; hence, after having either 

 from ignorance of the real invention, or from design, made a ficti- 

 tious explanation to the Attorney General, he may get the real in- 

 vention by treachery, and put it into his specification. 



What remedy would you propose for that ? — To fix every appli- 

 cant, as is done in France and America, by some specification in 

 the first instance, containing a definition of the principle and object 

 of the invention, leaving the patentee afterwards to prepare a more 

 complete specification when he had organized, and proved the means 

 by which the invention is to be carried into effect ; that final speci- 

 fication should be examined, and ought only to include such mat- 

 ters as are, in the opinion of competent examiners, a fair extension 

 of his original idea, as expressed in the first deposit. As it is now, 

 the patentee is not obliged in any way to declare what his invention 

 is, till he puts his specification to the patent previously granted to 

 him, and in the meantime he may change his plan within all the la- 

 titude that the generality of the title will permit. 



Would you advise that a person applying for a patent should 

 have his specification ready at the time of his first application ? — 

 Not his complete specification ; that is done in other countries, but 

 would be impracticable here ; because the spirit of rivalry and com- 

 petition is so strong, that an invention cannot be put to the test of 

 experiment, or brought to bear in secrecy, so as to enable an in- 

 ventor to defer his application until he is prepared to specify pro- 

 perly : that may be done in foreign countries, where secrecy can be 

 more readily preserved, but not here. The specification, with all 

 the details of description necessary for instructing the public how 

 to practise the invention, cannot be made till the invention has 

 been actually practised. I recommend that the inventor should 

 state all the particulars necessary to define the principle, and ex- 

 plain the outline of his invention ; so that when the complete or 

 real specification is afterwards made out, it can be decided by com- 

 petent judges, whither it is a fair development of the ideas origi- 

 nally recorded in the jjrovisional definition. 



You would compel him, on applying for his patent, lo lodge a 

 statement of the principles to be afterwards developed in the speci- 

 fication, and you would re<|uire that when the time has arrived for 

 the inrolmcnt of the specification, and consequently granting the 



patent. 



