74 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



Supposing a specification to be so accurately drawn as to be suffi- 

 cient to inform the public how to use the invention, and subse- 

 quently to that, the inventor discovered some improvement in his 

 invention, his patent is not forfeited by his using that improve- 

 ment ? — No, not by law ; but he must prove that his original inven- 

 tion would answer the purpose proposed, and be a useful and bene- 

 ficial practice, and the fact of his departing from it, is presumptive 

 against him; therefore, when the right comes to be tried in a court 

 of law, the inquiry does not turn upon the real patent machinery 

 that is in actual use, doing business and public good, but it is often 

 necessary to make old-fashioned and obsolete machines that were 

 described in the specification when no better known, but which have 

 been superseded by better ones, and are of no use except to satisfy 

 a court that what was specified will really do; and if by such evidence 

 the court can be persuaded that they will do, then, however infe- 

 rior they may be to the more recent editions of the invention 

 (which are never examined ), the patent escapes from being set aside 

 for want of sufficient description. If the opposite parties can per- 

 suade the court that the machines described will not answer, then 

 the patent is set aside, without any inquiry into the real merits of 

 the invention in its modern form, which is in daily use, and is the 

 real subject of the action. 



Is It not quite fair that the patentee should be bound to give such 

 a specification ? — Unquestionably ; but when an inventor's patent is 

 set aside because he has not fully described his invention, it ought to 

 be on the ground that the secret has been withheld, so that the 

 public are really not in possession of it, and have consequently not 

 derived the benefit of such possession. Instead of making ridicu- 

 lous inquiries whether an obsolete specification is so detiective as 

 to destroy the patent, it should be amended by a new one, corre- 

 sponding with the improved state of the practice. On the other hand, 

 if the public are really in possession of the invention, and deriving 

 benefit from its exercise, the patent ought not to be set aside, be- 

 cause they did not become possessed ot it by means of the old spe- 

 cification. That remedy for a bad specification is merely penal, and 

 the public have no advantage from it whatever ; they do not get any 

 more complete specification by annulling the patent. If the paten- 

 tee were to be compelled to bring a better specification, there 

 would be a real advantage ; and if he refused to do so, then the pre- 

 sent penalty of forfeiture would be very properly applied. 



Do you think that the public would have any security against 

 those imperfect specifications, by the appointment of a commission 

 to examine the specification before it wasinrolled? — It would be 

 very easy to have specifications examined and verified either by a 

 competent commission, or by suitable referees. The courts of jus- 

 tice now trust to the examination and opinion of others, but they 

 do so in an improper manner, because it is by parties, brought by 

 interested individuals, and when it is too late to amend any defects. 

 It is quite a branch of my business, where there are any disputes 

 upon patents, to examine and speak to the precision or defects of 



the 



