44 



SCIENTIFIC NEV/S. 



[April 1st, 1887. 



and this is practically admitted in the report, through the prac- 

 tice which so many competent judges for a long time past have 

 regarded as a mistaken one — and against which one influen- 

 tial witness spoke strongly in his evidence before this very 

 committee — of issuing notices of interference upon provi- 

 sional specifications. The report, as we have said, practically 

 acknowledges this evil, but adds : " We do not think it has 

 arisen from any want of care in the office, but from the 

 nature of the work to be done. Two provisional specifica- 

 tions may disclose apparently the same invention, and yet, 

 when the complete specifications are received, it maj' appear 

 from the fuller and more precise descriptions embodied in 

 them that there are really two distinct inventions, each 

 properly the subject-matter of a patent." 



If the notices referred to were issued only upon complete 

 specifications, very few, if any, mistakes need be made. The 

 reason is obvious. In a provisional specification the very 

 details, which in many cases are essential to the proper 

 understanding of the invention, are intentionally omitted, 

 while in complete specifications these details are minutely 

 specified. 



It would appear then that if the practice of issuing notices 

 of interference upon provisional specifications were stopped, 

 the evil would, if not entirely, at least, to a very large 

 extent, be remedied, without mutilating the Act in the manner 

 proposed by the committee. 



There is, however, another aspect of this examination and 

 interference question which must not be lost sight of 

 Without the interference element the whole system of 

 examination is like the play of Hamlet with the Prince of 

 Denmark left out. Take away the notices of interferences 

 and what have we left ? Let the Act speak for itself 

 Section 6 says the examiner " shall ascertain and report 

 to the comptroller whether the nature of the invention has 

 been fairly described, and the application, specification, and 

 drawings, (if any) h.ave been prepared in the prescribed 

 manner, and the title sufficientlj' indicates the subject-matter 

 of the invention." Section 9 states that when a complete 

 specification is left after a provisional the examiner 

 shall ascertain whether the complete specification has 

 been prepared in the prescribed manner, and whether 

 the invention therein set forth is substantially the same 

 as that described in the provisional specification. Brieflj', 

 the examiner shall see if the provisional specification is 

 in order (which can be done by rapidly glancing through it), 

 and also if the complete specification is in order, and fairly 

 agrees with the provisional. But what security or advantage 

 is such an examination to the inventor in whose interest it 

 is supposed to be made ? Will such an examination as this 

 tell him that his invention has been patented before in the 

 years gone by, or even that there is a precisely similar 

 application passing through the oflice at the same moment as 

 his ? Assuredly not ; it will simply cost him and his fellow 

 tax-payers somelhinglike _;^'i per application, for which they 

 will fail to find the least useful return. The number of 

 applications for patents last year was 17,162, and the cost in 

 salaries alone of the examination was, we are assured, not 

 less than _;^20,ooo, and most probably it was more. The 

 report states that the interference department costs _;^3,ooo 

 to ^4,000 per annum, so it is fair to take the cost of the 

 bald and useless examination described above at ^i 

 per application, and as a very large number of the applica- 

 tions are never completed (last j'ear, we believe, it was 

 about 40 per cent.) a considerable part of that sum is for 

 examining provisional specifications only. Attention has 

 been repeatedly drawn to the fact that under the old law of 

 1852, at the time of its supercession by the Act of 1883, 

 there were, roughly speaking, 6,000 applications, and these 

 were successfully dealt with by two m.en, who, however, did 



not examine the complete specifications. There are now 

 only a little more than three times that number of applica- 

 tions, and yet (not counting the interference examination, 

 and the staff of ten assistant examiners which, the report 

 says, are employed upon it) we are asked to believe that 

 an examining staff of some sixty men is necessary to cope 

 with them at the enormous outlay mentioned above. 



Surely, in this matter of examination, the committee has 

 failed to establish its case ; it has either gone too far in 

 proposing to abolish interferences — and we contend it has 

 gone too far — or it has not gone far enough ; and, in abolish- 

 ing interferences, has abolished also a system of examination 

 which, stripped of its most valuable feature, is at once useless 

 and expensive. 



The report makes a useful recommendation in proposing 

 that the time to be allowed for making amendments ordered 

 by the office should, except in special cases, be limited to 

 one month ; considerable abuse is believed to have arisen 

 under the present conditions where no limit is set, as an 

 applicant taking the full time allowed (sometimes reaching 

 to eight months), may avail himself of information obtained 

 from later applications in which the complete specification 

 has been filed with, or soon after, the application. Lastly, 

 the report recommends that a roll of patent agents should 

 be established, and, if this suggestion be adopted, that a fresh 

 committee should be appointed after sufficient time has 

 elapsed to test the new arrangements. 



And is this all ? Has this important committee, specially 

 appointed to inquire into the duties, organisation, and arrange- 

 ments of the Patent Office, nothing to say upon any of these 

 heads ? Has it no recommendation to make whereby some 

 of the present expenditure and redtapeism may be avoided ? 

 Not a single word ! 



A year ago the condition of affairs at the Patent Office had 

 become so notorious that the Board of Trade itself appointed 

 the strongest Committee probably that ever sat for such a 

 purpose, to inquire into the duties, organisation, and arrange- 

 ments of that office ; and the result of their labours is 



that they recommend an alteration in the system of examina- 

 tion ! Not a word about the duties of those responsible 

 for the proper working of the office ! Never a word about 

 the organisation or arrangements of the staff ! Does this 

 ignoring of the real business for which they were called to- 

 gether mean that the committee found the organisation of 

 the Patent Office so perfect that they could not suggest any 

 improvements ? or does it simply mean that the whole 

 arrangements were so hopelessly bad that any useful altera- 

 tion would have to be of so sweeping a nature that they dare 

 not recommened it ? 



Exception is likely to be taken by some of the witnesses 

 to the amount of "editing," to which their evidence appears 

 to have been subjected before being printed in this report, 

 and, perhaps, a similar description of censorship may account 

 for the singular lack of useful information relating to the 

 internal economy of the Patent Office. 



REVIEWS OF BOOKS. 



Practical Electricity. By Prof. W. E. Ayrton, F.R.S. London : 

 Casse'l and Co. 



Students of electricity of the present day may be con- 

 gratulated on having this book to assist them in their studies. 

 It supplies what has long been wanted — namely, a clearly- 

 written text-book on the subject of electricity which is quantita- 

 tive without being mathematical ; or, rather, without the abuse 

 of mathematics. Electricians of the old school have become 

 more and more conscious that the system under which they 

 studied — if, indeed, it could be called a system— and the books 

 and experiments from which they gained their knowledge were 



