164 ; REPORT—1858. 
Fig. 7. One of the posterior triarticulate spinners from Agelena labyrinthica, 
with spinning glands attached. 
Fig. 8. Portions of duct, from spinning glands imbedded in muscle, just as 
they are entering one of the spinnerets. 
The Patent Laws.—Report of the Committee of the British Association. 
Presented by W. Farrpairn, F.R.S. 
Tue subject of the Patent Laws has frequently occupied the attention of 
meetings of the British Association, and committees have from time to time 
been appointed for the purpose of considering how those laws might be 
rendered more efficient for the objects with which they are maintained. 
The Rev. Vernon Harcourt, in the inaugural address at the first meeting of 
the Association, held at York (September 1831), in which he expounded 
the objects and plan of the Association, referred to those laws as an instance 
in which fiscal regulations interfered with the progress of practical science, 
and as failing to give protection to property in scientific invention to the 
same extent as protection is given to every other species of property ; and 
he suggested a revision of those laws as one of the subjects to which a 
scientific association might be justly expected to call public attention; and 
Sir David Brewster, and others, have on several occasious brought the 
subject before meetings of the Association. 
By the Patent Law Amendment Act, passed in the session of 1852, the 
rights of the inventor to property in the offspring of his brain, and in the 
creations of his intellect when embodied in products of national industry, were 
fully recognized ; provisional protection to that property was secured to such 
inventor from the date of his application for a patent ; one proceeding was sub- 
stituted, and one patent issued, extending to the whole of the United Kingdom, 
instead of three proceedings and three patents separate and distinct for each 
of the three countries, England, Scotland and Ireland ; property was created 
and protection obtained for six months by a payment of £5; for three years 
by a payment of £25; and for the further terms of four and seven years, by 
additional payments of £50 and £100 respectively, instead of by the pay- 
ment of upwards of £300 in the first instance, under circumstances of such 
uncertainty as threw discredit on the whole system; the specifications of all 
patents are to be printed and published, and sold at extremely low prices; a 
benefit to the public as well as the inventor, which it would be difficult to 
estimate too highly ; and, lastly, provision was made for the regulation of 
matters relating to patents by commissioners furnished with ample powers 
for the purpose. 
This Act came into operation on the Ist of October, 1852, and the ex- 
perience of the first two years showed that the payments by inventors upon 
the above scale of charges would be at the rate of more than £50,000 per 
annum, without including the further or additional payments for the main- 
tenance of the patents for the further terms of four and seven years, after 
the expiration of the first three or seven years respectively. 
At the meeting of the British Association in Liverpool, September 1854, 
a committee, presided over by the Earl of Harrowby, was appointed “ for 
the purpose of taking such steps as may be necessary to render the patent 
system and the funds derived from inventors more efficient and available 
for the reward of meritorious inventors and the advancement of practical 
science.” This committee communicated with the Earl Granville and Lord 
Brougham, to whose exertions and watchful care the passage of the measure 
