C, 
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E"*. 425 
Senator Ruffini’s Report, 1923, approved by the Council of the League of Nations. 
Further proposals by T. Quevedo and Gariel. 
Declaration of a meeting of the I.I.C.I. of January 5, 1927, that there is, a priori, 
no legal impossibility in the recognition of the rights of authors of scientific discoveries. 
Circulation of a questionnaire by a committee of industrial property of the Inter- 
national Chamber of Commerce, 1926 and 1927. 
Meeting of the Committee of Experts, Paris, 1928, drawn from the Economic 
Committee of the League of Nations, the International Labour Bureau, the Inter- 
national Bureau of Industrial Property, the International Chamber of Commerce 
and the International Confederation of Scientific Workers. 
Draft International Law submitted to the League of Nations, July 1928. 
Replies from different Governments. 
Discussions at the Geneva and Rome Congresses of the International Association 
for the Protection of Industrial Property. 
Proposed application of insurance to cover the risks resulting from the protection 
of scientific property, C.L. 155, 1930. 
C. J. Hampson’s Essay. 
American, German and British views of the impracticability of the propositions. 
Dr. H. 8. Hatrretp.—On Suggestions for Revision of the Patent Law. 
The British Patent Law was the first of its kind, and has been copied almost 
universally ; it was also one of the causes of our long start in industry. While still 
generally approved by investigating committees, it notoriously fails to secure to 
individual inventors a suitable reward, and hence they now find it almost impossible 
to obtain financial backing. 
The Law confuses two quite separate desirable aims: (1) the reward of the actual 
inventor and his backers in the developmental stage ; (2) the encouragement by 
limited monopoly of new manufactures. The latter was the original intention of 
the Statute of Monopolies upon which our Patent Law is founded, the general idea of 
protecting individual creative work of all kinds having grown up later. 
The result is that simple registration and assertion of priority is beset with 
difficulties and expense which baffle most individual inventors, while the grant of 
monopoly by the Crown is treated with complete laxity. Hence, it has hardly more 
value than a lottery ticket. 
The remedy is to separate the two issues. The inventor should only be required 
to register his priority by an account of what he is doing, and should not receive a 
grant of monopoly. This should go to a manufacturer on application with production 
of evidence of bona fides, and be secured to him absolutely during continuance of 
manufacture and general good behaviour, due advertisement having given objectors 
a limited period to appear. The monopoly would normally carry with it a fixed 
percentage charge, to be divided among claimants to having had a share in the 
invention and development to practicality of the new manufacture. Claims would 
be decided by a commission. This would also deal with cases in which inventions 
were being manufactured without application for monopoly having been made. 
The economic future of this country depends upon its export trade, and this can 
only flourish if we are and continue to be technically in advance of the rest of the 
world, since standardised goods can now be manufactured everywhere, often more 
advantageously than here. Hence it is necessary to utilise our creative ingenuity 
to the utmost. In this respect institutional systems have proved disappointing, as 
in all other fields of original and creative work. However ridiculous the monomaniac 
enthusiast may appear to other and quite different types, accustomed to dealing calmly 
and prudently with affairs, the product of his (possibly pathological) mind is urgently 
necessary to our future prosperity. 
Mr. Kennetu R. Swan.—The Inventor and the Employer. 
1. Conflicting claims of employer and employee to patent an invention, and the 
need for some amendment of the law to provide for suitable procedure for dealing 
with such claims without resorting to the charge of ‘ obtaining.’ 
2. Consideration of the question who is entitled to the benefit of the invention 
of the patent when obtained, and an examination of the various classes of employee 
and the circumstances under which inventions are evolved. 
