192 



NATURE 



\yan. 7, 1875 



and legal opinions, that they have a right to have them 

 gratuitously. I ha\'e never been able to understand on 

 what grounds that theory rests ; and my belief is, that if 

 you would assimilate scientific knowledge to medical and 

 legal knowledge in that respect, you could always get, for 

 a proper remuneration, the very best scientific opinion that 

 the country is able to furnish. You cannot expect that 

 you should be able to make upon a man, every moment 

 of whose time is occupied, a demand involving his time 

 for hours or days of research, if you are not prepared to 

 behave to him as you would to a lawyer in a similar case." 



There is no reason to suppose that, though these obser- 

 vations reflect with severity upon the Patent Commis- 

 sioners' proposal, Lord Salisbuiy had that case in view 

 when he made them. He was no doubt giving the result 

 of his wide experience as a statesman and departmental 

 chief, and it is a comfort to know that in the present 

 Cabinet there is at least one man competent to assign its 

 true value to scientific work, and bold enough to insist 

 that that value shall be given. It will be perceived that 

 Lord Salisbury hints that the departments are not, and 

 cannot be expected to be, supplied with " the best scien- 

 tific opinion,'' because . it is not properly paid for. He 

 therefore urges liberality to men of science, as we have 

 always done, strictly on the ground of public policy. An 

 instance in point recently came to our knowledge where 

 a department asked one of our most eminent physicists for 

 an opinion on a meteorological question, but the corre- 

 spondence was abruptly closed on his venturing to inquire 

 what would be his remuneration for preparing a laborious 

 and difficult report. 



Foreign nations are now teaching us that it is time 

 short-sighted parsimony like this came to an end, and that 

 the sooner men in authority are " prepared," as the Patent 

 Commissioners phrase it, to pay handsomely for the most 

 fruitful work of which man is capable, the better for the 

 country. 



It must not be overlooked that at the time this pre- 

 posterous proposal was made by the Patent Commissioners 

 two of their own number were the recipients of 5,000/. or 

 6,000/. a year, paid out of the Patent fees, for which they 

 rendered, and could render, for want of the requisite 

 knowledge, absolutely no service to the Patent system, 

 and that the surplus income of the office was about 

 90.000/. per annum. 



The following is a copy of the correspondence referred 

 to by Col. Strange in his remarks during the discussion, 

 as having taken place on the subject of appointing unpaid 

 Commissioners of Patents : — 



{Copv of the Mciiuwial.) 



To the Right Hon. the Lord Romilly, Master of the Rolls. 



My Lord, — The great use of patents is to make known the 

 inventions, processes, and secrets of others. It is therefore 

 higlily important that the mass of information accumulated at 

 the Patent Office should be made available, so as to make known 

 as far as possible all inventions and modes of manufacture for 

 the benefit of the country. The advantage of so doing would 

 be immense, and would help to keep the manufactures of this 

 country in advance of others. Action in this direction on the 

 part of the authorities has been prayed for in every memorial 

 that has been presented. 



One of tlie first memorials was presented by the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers, with Mr. Robert Steplienson as pre- 

 sident at its head. This was presented in 1S53 to the Right 

 Honourable Frederick Lord Chelmsford, Lord High Chancellor 

 of Great Britain, the Right Honourable Sir John Romilly, 

 Master of the Rolls, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, her Majesty's Attorney- 

 General, and Sir Hugh McCalmont Cairns, her Majesty's 

 Solicitor-General; and prayed for greater facilities being given 

 to persons making inquiries in any branch of knowledge at the 

 Patent Office. 



The second memorial in 1S62 was presented to the Right 

 Honourable Sir John Romilly. It prayed amongst other things 

 for " a building as an office for patents, including in it a com- 

 plete library, a commodious reading-room, and suitable offices 



for a proper staff of clerks and otliers to jirepare well-digested 

 and numerous abstracts and abridgments of inventions and pro- 

 cesses, made public either by the specifications of patents or 

 otherwise, and whether English or foreign." 



A third memorial was presented to Sir John Romilly in 1S64. 

 It prayed not only that the efficiency of the office should be 

 increased, but called the attention of the Commissioners to 

 recent reductions in the staff and its disorganised state ; which 

 staff was " utterly inadequate to satisfy the requirements of per- 

 sons seeking information among the very numerous works con- 

 tained there." The memorialists went on to state that " they 

 had entertained the hope that, so far from a reduction being 

 made, there would have been an increase orderetl to such an ex- 

 tent as would have enabled the abridgments of the specifications 

 in the various branches of art (which abridgments were commenced 

 about seven years ago) to be pushed vigorously forward, so as 

 to complete the abstracting of the whole of the original specifi- 

 cations, and to keep up those abstracts from year to year as new 

 matter is furnished. Your memorialists feel it is hardly possible 

 to oven-ate the advantages to be derived by the public from a 

 complete and intelligent system of abstracts ; and they venture 

 to urge upon the consideration of the Commissioners the neces- 

 sity of at once providing a sufficient number of qualified persons 

 (to be under the entire control of the scientific ollicer appointed 

 by the Commissioners to superintend the specifications) to assist 

 that officer in preparing such abstracts, and also to collect and 

 epitomise scientific information generally." 



The president and members of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers addressed a memorial in 1S64 to the Right Honourable 

 Lord Westbury, then Lord Chancellor, bringing under his lord- 

 ship's notice the fact " that very great loss and delay are occa- 

 sioned to manufacturers, inventors, and others, by the want of a 

 complete classification and the prompt indexing of all inventions, 

 whether patented or not, foreign as well as English. Such a 

 systematic arrangement as is needed is quite within the compass 

 of an efficient staff of officers possessed of technical knowledge, 

 and could be at once proceeded with ; the state of inventions 

 could then be ascertained, and the common case of several per- 

 sons patenting the same thing would be avoided." 



In 1S64 a Select Committee of the House of Commons in- 

 quired at great length into the working of the Patent OflSce ; 

 and reported, in accordance with the general tenor of the evidence, 

 that much more was required to be dune at the Patent Office to 

 render it efficient ; that more attendants were required, and 

 " that the want of increased accommodation v/as so much felt as 

 to prejudice the due administration of the Patent-law" (para- 

 graphs 3 and 4 of report ; answers 10 to 13, I-S to 21, 658 to 

 662, 667, 817, 863, 103S, and 1039 of evidence). 



We merely allude to the opinions expressed by the Select 

 Committee of the House of Commons, scientific men, manufac- 

 turers, engineers, and inventors, as the various memorials and 

 other documents are in the possession of the Commissioners of 

 Patents ; but we would further mention that the various Com- 

 missioners of Patents have from the year 1S5S reported from 

 time to time to the Lords of the Treasury that great improve- 

 ments were wanted, and a good building urgently required for 

 the purposes of the Patent Office. 



In conclusion we beg to state that it is our decided opinion, 

 and that of many of those who have signed various memorials, 

 that it would conduce greatly to the progress of manufactures 

 and the advancement of commerce, if the large stock of know- 

 ledge of inventions and processes, both patented and open, stored 

 at the Patent Office, were made available to the manufacturers 

 and the public generally ; and this your petitioners believe would 

 best be comp.assed if her Majesty were graciously pleased to 

 appoint that "' other person as Commissioner of Patents," as 

 contemplated by the Patent-law Amendment Act 011852, and if 

 the staff at the Patent Office were augmented by the addition of 

 a sufficient number of persons, possessed of good technical know- 

 ledge, and well able to abstract all specifications as they came in 

 daily, so that they might at once be entered into an efficient 

 Subject-matter Index, which would give a true indication of 

 what was in the specifications. In addition to this of couiie the 

 large number of specifications already at the office would require 

 to be abstracted and entered in a similar manner in a new edition 

 of subject-matter indexes, that would really indicate what was 

 contained in each specification, which the present indexes do 

 not. Further, we beg to urge that similar subject-matter in- 

 dexes be formed of all inventions and processes comprised in the 

 very numerous indexes and tables of contents of the scientific 

 books contained in the excellent scientific and technical library 



