ON PATENT LEGISLATION. 695 
Report of the Committee, consisting of Sir FREDERICK BRAMWELL 
(Secretary), Professor A. W. WILLIAMSON, Professor Sir WILLIAM 
Tuomson, Mr. St. Jonn Vincent Day, Sir F. ABEL, Captain 
Doveias Gaiton, Mr. E. H. Carsutr, Mr. Macrory, Mr. H. 
TRUEMAN Woop, Mr. W. H. Bartow, Mr. A. T. AtcHtson, Sir R. 
KE. Wesster, Mr. A. CARPMAEL, Sir JoHN Luspock, Mr. THEODORE 
Aston, and Mr. JAMES BRUNLEES, appointed for the purpose of 
watching and reporting to the Council on Patent Legislation. 
On August 14, 1885, an Act was passed entitled ‘An Act to amend 
the Patents Designs and Trades Marks Act’ of 1883. 
This amending Act consists of six sections, the first and second of 
which relate to matters of form. 
The third section deals with an extension of time which under certain 
circumstances might be allowed for the reception of the complete 
specification and for the sealing of the patent. 
The fourth section is a very important one. It provides for that which 
the members of this Committee and the Committee of the Society of Arts 
desired to see introduced into the Act of 1883, viz., that where an 
application for a patent has not been perfected, the specification, with its 
drawings, if any, left in connection with the application, shall not at any 
time be open to public inspection or be published by the Comptroller. 
In the view of the Committee this isa most salutary provision. As 
the law stood, the publication of crude and immature ideas, meaningless 
at the time, but to which a meaning might be given when.success had 
been attained by some independent inventor, frequently prevented such 
inventor from obtaining a valid patent, to the great loss of the public as 
well as of himself. 
In at length introducing this provision into the Patent Act, the 
Government has followed the plan pursued in the United States in respect 
of the document which, so far as its citizens are concerned, is the equivalent 
of our provisional specification. 
The Committee regard this fourth section with great satisfaction, as 
showing that it is at last recognised to be for the benefit of the public not 
to throw open new inventions, but to give an inventor the strong personal 
interest which induces him to push his invention into practical work. In 
fact, the truth of the oft-quoted saying of the late Sir William Siemens, 
that ‘if an invention were found lying in the gutter, it would be in the 
interest of the public to assign it to some person as owner,’ is admitted. 
Section 5 is also important as clearing up a doubt whether, under the 
Act of 1883, a patent could be lawfully granted to two or more persons, 
when some of the persons to whom it was granted had not had any part 
in the invention. Section 5 of this Act of 1885 declares that it has 
been, and is, lawful, under the Act of 1883, to grant a patent under such 
circumstances. 
The sixth and last section relates to a slight, but not unimportant, 
alteration in section 103 of the Act of 1883. This section (section 103) 
has not yet attracted as much public attention as its importance demands. 
Many of the Governments of Europe, including Great Britain, have 
entered into a Convention by which they are endeavouring to introduce an 
International Patent Law. It has been officially announced that England 
