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THURSDAY, JULY 23, 190S. 



PATENTS AND THE PUBLIC. 

 The Patents and Designs Act, 1907. By James 

 Roberts and H. Fletcher Moulton. Pp. xiv+128. 

 (London : Butterworth and Co., 1907.) Price 45. 

 net. 



IN the preface to this book the authors state that 

 it does not pretend to be a treatise on patent 

 hiw, but that its object is to give assistance to ' the 

 reader in the interpretation of the new enactments 

 and to point out their practical effects. The authors 

 have not discussed the wisdom of the many changes 

 in the law introduced' by the new Act, nor have 

 they attempted to dogmatise on points which must 

 necessarily, on account of the language employed 

 in framing the ifew provisions, await judicial decision. 

 They have, however, indicated where these points lie, 

 and have directed attention to both aspects of the 

 questions involved so as to enable persons dealing 

 with patents to appreciate the dangers ahead. 



Among the many changes to which the authors 

 direct attention are the important alterations in the 

 jurisdiction and powers of the Comptroller. The 

 jurisdiction of the Comptroller as to the granting of 

 patents has been extended by giving him the power, 

 under section 7, to refuse a patent altogether if he 

 is satisfied that the invention claimed has been wholly 

 and specifically claimed in any specification published 

 before the date of the application for the patent in 

 question. In cases of opposition under the Act of 

 1S83, the Comptroller had power to refuse to grant 

 a patent if the invention had already been patented 

 in this country, and the new Act extends this practice 

 in opposition cases to cases coming under the official 

 search instituted by the Act of 1902. The words 

 " wholly and specifically claimed " woitld appear to 

 indicate that it is intended to give the Comptroller 

 power to refuse under this provision only patents for 

 those inventions which have been described and 

 claimed in prior specifications in substantially identical 

 terms. This new power of the Comptroller should 

 prove to be of considerable benefit to the i, '''' "nl, 

 community in that it will tend to prevent the',. ^.' . 

 of worthless patents, of which there are such a larye 

 number in existence. 



The jurisdiction of the Comptroller as to the grant- 

 ing of patents has been also extended by enlarging 

 the grounds of oppositioa before him, for by section 

 II any person may give notice of opposition on 

 the ground that the nature of the invention or the 

 manner in which it is to be performed is not sufli- 

 ciently or fairly described and ascertained in the com- 

 plete specification. Hitherto it has been the practice 

 that a member of the public who had no special 

 interest was not entitled to oppose the grant of a 

 patent, but the question of what persons are entitled 

 to be heard in opposition now becomes of greater 

 importance, as it is only such persons as are entitled 

 to oppose under this section who are entitled to peti- 

 tion for the revocation of the patent under section 26. 

 The two distinct views which may reasonably be taken 

 of the right to oppose under this section are fairly 

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stated by the authors, but it is not at present clear 

 which view will finally be adopted. This section 

 should result in a desirable improvement of the de- 

 scriptions contained in specifications, for unless the 

 nature of the invention and the manner in which it 

 is to be performed are sufficiently and fairly described 

 and ascertained in the complete specification, this 

 may be made a ground of opposition to the grant. 



Two important changes in the practice of develop- 

 ing an invention are introduced by the new Act. 

 Under section i6, an applicant who has put in two 

 or more provisional specifications for inventions which 

 are cognate or modifications one of the other may 

 file one complete specification in respect of the whole 

 of the applications, so that by this section an applicant 

 may, as the authors state, " file several provisional 

 specifications as improvements occur to him, and 

 in the event of the Comptroller allowing them to 

 be included in one patent, he does not risk in- 

 validity by reason of disconformity." Under section 

 19 a patent of addition may be applied for in re- 

 spect of any improvement in or modification of the 

 invention for which an ordinarv patent has been 

 applied for. The advantage of introducing patents 

 of addition is that they enable a patentee to de- 

 velop his invention at less cost than would be in- 

 curred by taking out separate patents for each 

 improvement, as no renewal fees are payable in 

 respect of a patent of addition. 



The practice on a petition for revocation of a pater.t 

 has been very much altered by the new Act. Revora- 

 tion of a patent may be obtained on petition to the 

 Court as hitherto, but, in addition, the Comptroller 

 may now revoke a patent on various grounds. In 

 the first place, under section 26, any person who would 

 have been entitled to oppose the grant of a patent 

 may, within two years of the date of the patent, apply 

 to the Comptroller for an order revoking the patent 

 on any ground on which the grant might have been 

 opposed; so that under this section an opponent may 

 come in to petition for revocation, and thus subject 

 the patentee to the annoyance of what is practically 

 an opposition considerably after the time has expired 

 in which an opposition could have been entered under 

 the old procedure. Secondly, under section 27 any 

 person may apply to the Comptroller for the revoca- 

 tion of a patent on the ground that the patented 

 article or process is manufactured or carried on ex- 

 clusively or mainly outside the United Kingdom. The 

 authors state that : — 



" .\n attempt was made to attain the object of this 

 clause by section 3 of the Act of 1902, but that 

 section has proved practically a c^ad letter, partly 

 in consequence of its ambiguitv and partly because of 

 the heavy expense it entailed on a petitioner. In the 

 year iqo6, out of 14,700 patents issued, 6500 were 

 granted to foreigners; in the case of patents for dyes 

 the proportion was about 95 per cent. In many cases 

 these inventions were worked abroad exclusively, and 

 the patented articles, or substances made by the 

 patented processes, were imported in large quantities 

 into this country, the British patents being used 

 merely for the purpose of closing the market to 

 persons other than the patentee and his licencees." 



Such a state of affairs was in direct opposition to 

 the spirit of our patent law, and as the obvious remedy 



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