WILLIAM SII Ml. VS, I'M.S. 345 



\\.>;ild approach more nearly to those of Prussia; the Commis- 

 sioners appointed would be instructed to seek for an excuse to 

 refuse the application, rather than to try to modify the application 

 in such a way as to give the applicant the benefit of a patent. 

 The question of the best form of examination was involved in 

 difficulty, and he must admit that he had not yet been able fully 

 to satisfy himself about it. Examination was decidedly useful, if 

 it stopped at the point where it gave the applicant information 

 that was useful to him. In seeking a patent the applicant some- 

 times had an elaborate search made by his agent, which was 

 naturally costly, and many an inventor would not be willing or 

 able to incur the necessary expense of that examination. But the 

 applicant had to pay a considerable sum of money to the Patent 

 Office for procuring his patent ; and it seemed very natural to 

 propose to relieve him from the onus of having to make this 

 search for himself, but to give him the information he desired for 

 the fees he had to pay. If that plan were 'carried out, with the 

 idea neither to baffle the applicant nor unduly to encourage him, 

 but simply to give him such information as would enable him to 

 adopt the correct course with regard to his invention, that would 

 be an undoubted benefit. He suggested that it would therefore 

 be sufficient for the examiners clearly to state what had been done 

 and what had been proposed to be done, and so to warn the 

 applicant what he had to avoid in his specification. There was 

 not any occasion to go the length of endorsing a condemnation 

 upon his patent, but simply to inform him of what was known 

 and published, and was therefore to be avoided, without adding 

 any advice as to proceeding or not proceeding with the applica- 

 tion. Some such medium course might probably be the means of 

 meeting the difficulty, which was a real one. 



