670 
secured a lead, as great in its field as has be- 
come, meantime, that of Germany in industrial 
education. During late years, the patent system 
of Great Britain, formerly exceedingly crude, 
costly to the inventor and the nation, and in 
all ways unsatisfactory to those who were un- 
selfishly and honestly interested in the advance- 
ment of British trade, has been greatly modern- 
ized and liberalized ; but it has not, even yet, 
been made fairly comparable with that of the 
United States. 
An important commission, appointed by the 
Board of Trade and composed of some of the 
ablest experts and best known men in the 
kingdom, has just reported upon its operation 
and itis perhaps possible to deduce from this 
report conclusions that may be useful in pro- 
moting the still further improvement of our 
own system, of late years reduced rather than 
improved in its efficiency by legislation and by 
official interpretations of doubtful provisions of 
law. After examining into the operation of 
the British patent laws and receiving the testi- 
mony of officials of the patent office, of referees, 
litigants, users of patented articles, patent 
agents and experts, the commission reported. 
It was found that, of patents issued, only 
57.6 per cent. were actually novel and unan- 
ticipated by previous invention. Nearly 7 per 
cent. had been fully anticipated in all details ; 
35 per cent. had been partially anticipated ; a 
few were claims on old devices and others de- 
scribed no method of manufacture. Forty-two 
per cent. had thus been anticipated, in whole 
or in part. 
The commission states its opinion that the 
granting of invalid patents is thus a very se- 
rious evil and one which should be at once 
abolished. A method of examination like that 
of the U. S. Patent Office is recommended, and 
a scrupulous system of detection and elimina- 
tion of anticipated claims. It recommends, 
however, a curious limitation: That ‘‘ the pub- 
lication of an invention in specifications of let- 
ters patent granted in the United Kingdom 
dated fifty years or more previous to the date 
of the application, or in a provisional applica- 
tion, of any date, of the kind before mentioned, 
shall not in itself be deemed an anticipation of 
the invention,”’ 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Von. XIII. No. 330. 
It is recommended that time, not to exceed 
two months (two years time is given in the 
United States Patent Office) should be allowed 
for amendment of a claim, and that a system of 
appeal, very like that long in operation in the 
United States, be allowed in case of rejection. 
This provision, restricting amendment to a 
period of two months, if it had been adhered 
to in the United States, would have prevented 
the litigation now in progress over the Berliner 
and other patents in this country, and would 
have saved a vast amount of expense to the 
litigants and insured a larger employment of 
inventions in improvement of existing practice 
and would have saved enormous injury to pat- 
entees and to the nation. 
This British commission also considers the 
matter of compulsory licenses. It often hap- 
pens, in that country as in this, that valuable 
patents are putchased by wealthy and power- 
ful interests and simply held, unused, to pre- 
vent their competition with the holders and to 
evade that serious difficulty often met with in 
the compulsory replacement of existing and 
fairly satisfactory apparatus by the improved 
device. Every great corporation and many 
smaller organizations hold patents thus con- 
cealed and out of use, until their own special 
interests make it desirable to put them into use; 
and the public is thus defrauded of all that ad- 
vantage, meantime, which is its proper com- 
pensation for the establishment and mainte- 
nance of a patent system. The British patent 
laws have, for nearly twenty years, provided, 
as have not those of the United States, against 
this abuse. It is made the duty of the proper 
officials to grant an order compelling the holder 
of the patent to grant licenses on terms to be 
adjudged fair and equitable by the proper goy- 
ernment officials. This provision has been 
subject to some criticism in its details, and the 
commission advises its amendment and improve- 
ment; adhering, however, to the underlying 
principle that the public should not lose its 
rights or the advantage assumed to be gained 
by it when providing the legal forms of a pat- 
ent system and of protection to the inventor. 
It is recommended that the ‘ High Court’ shall 
receive and consider complaints reciting the 
facts, if they so prove, that the applicant is in- 
