GELATINE FOE BOTTLE CAPSULES. 
4-49 
number of that periodical, an interesting and well-written article upon “Patents 
and Patentees.” From the perusal of it, and some subsequent practical working, 
I came to the determination of bringing the subject before you, believing that 
there are points in it well worthy your attention. 
Without asking you to travel with me through the contributor’s entire article, 
I will, as briefly as I can, pick out a few of the more interesting parts, before I 
come to that portion which may be supposed to enter more especially into your 
and my domain,—in fact, that part concerning us as pharmaceutists and dealers 
generally. 
“ The Patent Office consists of a suite of rooms in Southampton Buildings, 
near Chancery Lane. Inventive genius,” says the writer from whom I am 
borrowing, “ deposits there annually considerably over £ 100,000 ; the surplus 
from successive years now amounts, at the end of 1865, to more than £200,000. 
The stamp duties on patents yield to the Exchequer £20,000 per annum ; the 
office-fees paid by inventors amount to £91,000. After paying the very liberal 
expenses of the Patent Office out of this prodigious income, the sum of £44,000 
remains ; and this is the annual saving or profit which has accumulated to the 
above figures of £200,000. Large sums of money are positively thrown away 
by inventors: over 3000 petitions for letters-patent are sent in annually, but 
more than 800 of the petitioners fail to give notice of intention to proceed with 
their patents, and thereby lose collectively £4000, which they have paid in fees, 
and about 200 more fall off before the actual sealing of the patent 5 upon the 
average the 3000 fall away to 2000 patents actually sealed, and of these not 
more than 550 survive the first period of three years ; that is, 1450 yearly decline 
to pay the additional sum each of £50, which is necessary for carrying on their 
patents beyond the third year. The result seems to be, that out of 3000 petitions 
for letters-patent there will only be 100 patents destined to survive more than 
seven years, although the law extends the privilege to double that period if the 
fees be paid. 
“Now the payment of fees, or rather the inability or dislike to the payment, 
with the assistance of attendant circumstances, no doubt, contributes in some 
measure to this result. The course cf patents, however, under the most favour¬ 
able conditions, like true love, very rarely does run smooth : there are many 
shoals and quicksands upon which patentees may run foul and sink. A vast 
deal of useless trouble, worry, and expense might be spared in the matter of 
patents, if people would only bear in mind, first, what is entitled to a patent, 
and next, whether the invention has the requisite conditions. Indentions en¬ 
titled to patents may be briefly enumerated as follows 
1 . “A new combination of mechanical parts, whereby a new machine is pro¬ 
duced, though each of the parts separately be old and well-known. 
2. “An improvement on any machine, whereby such machine is rendered 
capable of performing better or more beneficially. 
3. u Wh.cn the vendible substance is the thing produced, either by chemical 
or other processes, such as medicines or fabrics. 
4. “ Where an old substance is improved by some new working, the means 
of producing the improvement is in most cases patentable. 
“ It must be admitted, however, that in the case of certain lucrative patents 
no amount of accuracy will necessarily secure a patentee from trouble, if. his 
patent be in opposition to an existing patent held by moneyed and determined 
parties. Instances are known in which every invention in the least interfering 
with an existing patent is at once legally attacked and crushed out of existence, 
either by forced compromise or the fear of law expenses. The fact is, that our 
patent laws need great amendment; and nothing could prove this more pointedly 
than the present case of ‘ Betts’s Patent Metallic Capsule,’ which promises an ex¬ 
uberant crop of ruinous lawsuits against a host of innocent tradesmen, and even 
