lxiv REPORT — 1879. 



Chancellor from an adverse decision by the Law Officer. At present, the appeal is 

 only by an opponent in case of a favourable opinion by the Law Officer. 



(4.) Clause 16. — On payment of certain fees from time to time, the patents to 

 be hereafter granted are to before a term of twenty-one years, without power of 

 prolongation. 



Note. — This extended time is not to apply to patents existing at the date of the 

 Bill becoming law. 



(5.) Clause 17. — A patentee is to have liberty to amend his specification, not 

 only by way of correcting error, as at present, but also by way of explanation, sup- 

 plement, or otherwise, provided that the supplemental matter could properly have 

 been included within the patent had it been in the mind of the inventor at the time 

 the patent was taken out. 



(6.) Clause 18. — The Crown is to pay royalties in the same way as a subject 

 pays them, with this qualification, however — that the patentee shall be compelled 

 to allow the Crown to use the invention, upon terms to be agreed, or, failing 

 agreement, to be settled by the Treasury, with the advice and assistance of the 

 Commissioners of Patents. 



(7.) Clause 19. — The patent shall be revocable after three years, if the patentee 

 cannot show that he has put the invention into practice by himself or his licensees, or 

 made reasonable efforts to do so, or if he fail to grant licenses to proper persons 

 requesting the same on terms which the Lord Chancellor may deem reasonable. 



(8.) Clause 47. — The stamp duties on obtaining a patent are to be 121. 10s. 

 instead of 251. as at present ; the three years' stamp of 50/., and the seven years' 

 stamp of 100/., remaining as at present, with a farther payment of 100/., to be 

 made in the twelfth year, for the purpose of preventing the patent lapsing at the 

 end of the fourteenth year, and of continuing it until the twenty-one years. 



The Committee will now give the resolutions they passed upon certain details 

 in the Bill, and they will state the reasons which have led them to pass the 

 resolutions. They believed that the Bill if altered as they suggest would be a 

 better Bill than it is now, but they look upon the general scope of this Bill with 

 so much favour that they desire to refrain from any insistance of their views in 

 respect of detail, if such insistance would be at all likely to impede the passing 

 of the Bill this session, and they therefore beg leave to give here at the commence- 

 ment of this record of their proceedings the resolution in which they affirmed 

 their approval of the principle of the Government Bill. 



It was moved by Dr. C. W. Siemens, F.R.S., &c, the Chairman of the 

 Committee, and seconded by Mr. F. J. Bramwell, F.R.S., the Secretary of the 

 Committee, that — 



"The Government Bill, subject to certain modifications, meets with the entire 

 approval of this Committee." 



The following paragraphs give not only the views of the Committee in respect 

 of the modifications of those clauses which, in the judgment of the Committee, 

 can be beneficially altered, but also the expression of the approval of the Com- 

 mittee of certain new clauses in the Bill, which appear to be entirely satisfactory 

 as they now stand :— 



Clause 5. — The Committee observe with regret that, while providing for 

 extra Commissioners, no suggestion is made that these should be paid ; and, 

 indeed, in the " Memorandum " printed with the Bill, the new Commissioners are 

 described as " unpaid." If the additional Commissioners are to be of real use, 

 they must devote themselves continuously to the conduct of the business of the 

 Patent Office, and this cannot be expected without adequate payment. On this 

 point the Committee came to the following resolution : — 



Resolved unanimously, — "That this Committee is of opinion that the five 

 Commissioners to be appointed should be paid Commissioners." 



Clauses 7, 8, and 9. — The Committee consider the extension of the provisional 

 protection to twelve months to be desirable, but they observe that, as the patent 

 may be opposed at any time within the " prescribed time," and as " ' prescribed r 



