.V/A> WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.N.S. 415 



ministration of that property as simple and as just all round as it 

 possibly can be made, humanly speaking. The patent law worked 

 out nominally by the Society of Arts, but in reality by my excellent 

 friend, Sir Frederick Bramwell, is, I think, the best considered, 

 and, perhaps, the most perfect attempt at a just and equitable 

 law on the subject ; and I, as one of the committee, can only hope 

 that it will find favour in this Section in order that it may be 

 strengthened by the weight of the British Association, and that 

 the Legislature of the country may take a similar view. It is idle 

 to discuss partial questions connected with such a law, as, for 

 instance, that the fees to be paid by a patentee should be a great 

 deal less. It is now proposed also to extend the operation of the 

 patent over twenty-one years instead of seventeen. You may 

 depend upon this that all these questions have been very carefully 

 considered by the committee, and also tested by legal opinion, and 

 that this Bill is the result of the careful and long meditations on 

 the subject by Sir Frederick Bramwell, and of the discussions that 

 took place in the committee, of which he was the chairman. I 

 may go further, and say that it is the result of previous discussions 

 that have taken place, not only in this country but abroad in 

 Vienna, where the Patent Congress met at the opening of the 

 Universal Exhibition. Again, in Paris, where at the time of the 

 last Exhibition, a very long discussion took place, all these 

 questions have been considered, and the best thing we can do is to 

 accept it en bloc, and not attempt in the course of the slight dis- 

 cussion, such as we can afford to give to it, to alter any of its more 

 important clauses. 



In the discussion of fhc Paper 



"ON IRON PERMANENT WAY," by C. WOODS, 



DR. SIEMENS* following Mr. R. Rawlinson, C.B., who had 

 remarked that "no doubt Dr. Siemens, who knew so much, 



* Excerpt Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Vol. 

 LXVII. 1881-82, p. 27, 



