PREFACE. EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THIS is essentially a book of reference. Its object is to supply a reliable and exhaustive summary of the reported Patent Law cases decided in English Courts of Law and Equity. No opinion is expressed upon the cases digested, and no attempt is made to reconcile conflicting decisions. All that the book contains rests upon the authority of the Judges. . . . The chronological arrangement of the cases gives a complete history of legal decision on the several points of Law and Practice under which they are arranged. This is the Author's justification for retaining some few overruled cases, and for introducing several decisions upon the same point where they are of different dates. JUNE 1875. CLEMENT HIGGINS. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE bearing of the sections of the Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act, 1883, on most questions concerning Patents is so immediate and important that it has seemed to us right to state the existing provisions of the Statute Law so as to be easily referred to in connection with the cases relating to similar portions of the subject. Further, the Act having precluded the possibility of any logical division of the subject other than that adopted by the Act itself, it has seemed advisable to put the various divisions in their alphabetical order, and thereby to avoid the necessity of a double index with the accompanying trouble to the reader of a double search. The title has been altered to indicate the more extended scope of the work, but subject to the above exceptions the old form of the book has been retained, including the arrangement of cases in chronological order; and all new decisions up to date have been, with such completeness as we could attain, incorporated under their respective headings. In giving the sections of the Patents Act, 1883, the words of the amending Acts have been inserted in italics where it has appeared possible to do so without leading to confusion. CLEMENT HIGGINS, 5, Paper Buildings, G. EDWARDES JONES, Nov. 5, 1890. 11, King's Bench Walk, Temple. |
