1^4 On Patents and their Utilization. 



ing scientific information are resorted to, by the English 

 and American Governments, through the mediumship of the 

 patent-office machinery. Attached to the London ofiice is 

 an extensive museum of models, specimens, &c., together 

 with a library containing upwards of twenty thousand 

 volumes. The cognate department at Washington, also, has 

 its library open to the public, laboratories for the use of 

 officials, and last, but not least, an immense museum, one 

 of the lions of the city. 



Following the example of these several countries, the 

 Government of Victoria has not remained idle with respect 

 to the issue of a similar kind of facts. During the period 

 elapsing between 1854 and 1866, 999 specifications had 

 accumulated in the Melbourne office. These were supple- 

 mented in 1867, 68, 69, 70 and 71 by 99, 125, 139, 119 and 

 1 33 respectively. By the last list issued in the Government 

 Gazette, the total number up to the present date is 1,616, 

 besides some twenty others enrolled under the old law. 



The ai'rangement of the Victorian subject matter Index, 

 however, was somewhat modified ; a very biief description 

 of the nature of the invention, omitted in the corresponding 

 English Index, being inserted to facilitate the making of 

 searches. This plan was carried out until the issue of the 

 last volume (the Index for 1869), when the descriptions were 

 omitted in the subject matter, and much longer ones inserted 

 in the Chronological, noAv termed the Chronological and 

 Descriptive Index. To this latter diagrammatic drawings are 

 now attached, so that the difiiculty of making searches, for 

 any given invention, is now reduced to a minimum. 



In the publication of specifications by the Victorian 

 Government a plan has been adopted differing somewhat 

 from both the English and the American systems. The 

 specifications are often necessarily somewhat shortened, but 

 never to such an extent but that every item of important 

 information in the original is conveyed to the reader. In 

 cases wherein the original is only moderately concise the 

 words of the patentee are allowed to stand, the stereotyped 

 beginning and ending of the specification as a legal document 

 being alone omitted. When the original is unnecessarily 

 lengthy much extraneous matter is left out ; but only in 

 cases wherein it is quite certain that the patentee's meaning 

 is clearly understood, and that the abridgement in every 

 respect conveys such meaning without the possibility of 

 misconstruction. 



