BETTS’S PATENT CAPSULES. 
263 
guishing mark that could be discovered either with or without a glass, and therefore 
it was that they considered the present proceedings taken by Mr. Betts against the 
retailers as most unjust, unfair, and oppressive. If Mr. Betts had given notice by 
advertisement that after a certain date he should enforce the rights secured to him by 
his patent, and that he intended to proceed against all infringers, it would have been 
a straightforward mode of proceeding, and they would all have cheerfully bowed to his 
decision, and have guarded themselves against such proceedings; but to take proceed¬ 
ings without notice against innocent persons was exceedingly harsh and unjust. The 
patentee stooped, it appeared, to the meanest practices to entrap the retail dealers. A gen¬ 
tleman informed him (Mr. Daubeney) on Saturday that a person called at his shop and 
ordered one of Bimmel’s 3s. 6d. capsuled toilet articles. He told the customer that he 
had not got it in stock, but he would procure it for him. He did so, and sent it to his 
customer, and the result was that it got into the patentee’s hands, who had since com¬ 
menced an action against the retailer for an infringement of his patent. It was a most 
disgraceful proceeding to inquire for an article, and when it was found not to be in stock 
to allow the retailer to procure it, in order that an action might be commenced against 
him for what the retailer was perfectly innocent of. The proceedings against the re¬ 
tailers had assumed a wholesale character, for within four or five daj’s three or four van 
loads of articles were purchased for the purpose of commencing legal proceedings 
against the unfortunate and innocent vendors. It appeared that some man had gone 
from shop to shop and purchased articles and sent for them the following day, until he 
had collected enough to nil three or four vans. He had not confined his operations to 
chemists and druggists, but he had patronized pickle merchants, publicans, perfumers, 
and others. Although they could not hope for any alteration in the capsule trade, 
still, so far as the retailer was concerned, they might ask for some protection by which 
the different capsules might be known, and if not, they had better try and do without 
them altogether. Mr. Betts, who claimed a priority of right to make capsules, ought 
to distinguish his manufacture by some mark, so that the retailer might know whether 
or not he was infringing the patent. 
Mr. Hart seconded the resolution. It was both urgent and imperative that some 
protection should be given to the innocent retailer. If the Patent Laws permitted bills 
in Chancery to be filed against persons who had unknowingly committed an offence— 
if it can be called an offence—small in comparison with the heavy bill of costs that would 
be incurred, they could only be looked upon as unjust and oppressive, and the sooner 
they were altered the better. He knew nothing of Mr. Betts or his capsules until it 
was brought to his notice by a bill in Chancery; and had it not been for the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society and his friends, he had no doubt he should have settled the matter by 
paying the costs of the action. It was a monstrous anomaly if the law allowed a bill 
to be filed in Chancery for the sale of an article covered with a bit of metal of which he 
knows nothing. It would therefore appear, that when they considered the number of 
patented articles sold by Pharmaceutical chemists and others, they were constantly 
treading on dangerous ground. They did not want to go into the question of taking 
away the remuneration of a man’s brains by the abolition of the Patent Law's, but they 
ought not to be in so much danger and to be surrounded by so many difficulties in the 
sale of certain small articles in a chemist’s shop. Some of them would no doubt be 
victims, and mulcted in large sums, but there w'ould be thousands who would be 
saved, and have to thank them for standing in the front rank. This discussion and 
agitation of the subject must lead to some beneficial remedy. 
Mr. Hills remarked that he thought the resolution proposed would be all very well 
if they had been all convicted. He did not think that they were altogether wrong, and 
therefore he should like to try the point. He was not aware if any of the defendants 
had compromised Mr. Betts’s claim. 
Mr. Daubeney said that he had compromised it under the advice of his solicitor. 
Mr. Hills said he should like to have the question tried, whether an innocent man 
who sold a packet with a capsule of which he had no knowledge was liable to be ha¬ 
rassed in the manner Mr. Betts was harassing the retailers of this country. The reso¬ 
lution, it appeared to him, rather affirmed a foregone conclusion. He was for protect¬ 
ing the man who had a patent, as the law stands; but the man who infringed the 
patent ought to pay, and not the innocent retailer, and for that purpose he added his 
name to the defence fund. 
