you combine them; but if you combine the selfadjusting leverage, which he thus applies to the subject of a chair, that is an infringement of the patent.' Lord Lyndhurst went on to say that the application of a self-adjusting leverage producing the effect constituted the machine, and the patentee claimed that machine, and the right to make it, by the application of a self-adjusting leverage producing a particular effect (Minter v. Wells, 1 W. P. C. 134).

In the case of the Electric Telegraph Company v. Brett (10 C. B. R. 838) it was argued that the giving of duplicate signals at intermediate stations was not the proper subject of a patent,- being an idea or principle only, and not a new manufacture. But it was held by the Court, that as the patentees had not only communicated the idea or principle, but showed how it might be carried into effect, viz. by appropriate apparatus at each station, the patent was valid.

See also the remarks upon this subject of Jessel, M. R., in the case of Otto v. Linford (46 L. T. N. s. 35).

PROCESSES.

It will have been observed, that what the statute of King James excepts from the operation of the invalidating first clause is the privilege of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures. Now it seems to have been at one time doubted whether a mere method or process was embraced by these words of the statute. Perhaps, said Lord Tenterden, C. J., in the case of Rex v. Wheeler (2 B. & A. 350), the statute may extend to a new process to be carried on by known implements, or elements acting upon known substances, and ultimately producing some other known substance, but producing it in a cheaper or more expeditious manner, or of a better and more useful kind.'

The current of decision since Lord Tenterden's time has converted what he put in a doubtful way into a certainty; for the books are full of cases which prove beyond a doubt that a process is patentable. The patent contested in Gibson v. Brand (1 W. P. C. 631) was for a new or improved process or manufacture of silk. Tindal, C. J., said that there was strong reason to suppose that a patent for a process, in the strict or proper sense of the term, might be good in law. Such certainly was the opinion of Chief Justice Eyre in Boulton v. Bull (which opinion we shall quote at length immediately), and such also appears to have been the opinion (carefully guarding against any abuse of the doctrine of Lord Tenterden in Rex v. Wheeler.

It has been said that the doubt as to whether a process is patentable has been needlessly raised, and that it is a misuse of terms to speak of a patentable process at all. The subject-matter of the patent, it is urged, is in reality a manufacture according to a new process, and this is therefore a new manufacture. For example, in Crane v. Price (1 W. P. C. 377), the subject of the patent was, according to this view, the manufacture of iron by means of a new process, viz. the combination of a hot-air blast and anthracite in the furnace. In Gibson v. Brand it was the manufacture of silk by a new process.

We are told by Pollock, C. B. (Stevens v. Keating 2 W. P. C. 182), that the real invention may be, not so much the thing when produced, as the mode in which it is produced; and its novelty may consist, not so much in its existence as a new substance, as in its being an old substance, but produced by a different process. In one sense, an old substance produced by a new process is a new manufacture; of that there cannot be a doubt; and therefore, although the language of the Act has been said to apply only to manufactures

and not to processes, when you come to examine, either literally, or even strictly, it appears to me the expression "manufacture" is free from objection, because, though an old thing, if made in a new way, the very making of it in a new way makes it a new manufacture. Therefore, although I think this is a patent for the process rather than the product, I think it may be a patent for the product.'

Allowing this explanation its full force, it will not extend to many cases wherein it has been decided that bare processes are patentable, or to cases where patents for mere applications have been supported. For example, in Forsyth v. Riviere (1 Carp. Rep. 401), the application of a known detonating powder to the discharge of known kinds of fire-arms was held to be a patentable invention. But how could this be a manufacture? Again, in the case of Hartley's Patent (1 W. P. C. 54), it was held that the application of metal plates, made in the ordinary way, to ships and buildings, with the view of protecting them against fire, by preventing the access of air, was a patentable invention. Again, in the case of the Electric Telegraph Company v. Brett (10 C. B. R. 838), a method of giving duplicate signals at intermediate stations was held to be properly the subject of a patent. In none of these cases was any new substance produced, nor any new machinery employed. Most certainly the exposition of the statute, as far as usage will expound it, has gone very much beyond the letter' (Eyre, C. J., in Boulton v. Bull, 1 Carp. R. 146); and Lord Chief Justice Tindal's remarks in Cornish v. Keene (1 W. P. C. 508) show the latitude of interpretation which is given to the word manufactures' in the Act of Parliament. It has a very wide and extended meaning. You may call it almost invention. Again, Coleridge, J., said, in Bush v. Fox (Macr. P. C. 176), manufac

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ture includes both process and result. And in Ralston v. Smith (11 H. L. C. 223), Lord Westbury said, 'By the large interpretation given to the word "manufacture," it not only comprehends productions, but it also comprehends the means of producing them. Therefore, in addition to the thing produced it will comprehend a new machine, or a new combination of machinery; it will comprehend a new process or an improvement of an old process.'

In Newall v. Elliott (13 W. R. 11) the patent was for improvements in apparatus employed in laying down submarine telegraph wires;' and the specification, after describing the apparatus, concluded with the following claim :-First, coiling the wire or cable round a cone; secondly, the supports placed cylindrically outside the coil round the cone; thirdly, the use of the rings in combination with the cone as described.' It was objected that the invention thus claimed was merely a mode of coiling and paying out cables, and was not a new manufacture, and could not therefore be the subject-matter of a patent. The Court, however, over-ruled the objection, and held the patent valid.

Previous to the patent granted to Wallington, gelatine had been made by submitting large pieces of hide to the action of caustic alkali, and by employing blood to clarify the product. Wallington's process consisted in cutting the hides into thin slices, and the use of blood was unnecessary. This was held to be a patentable invention. (Wallington v. Dale, 7 Exch. Rep. 888.)

The observations of Chief Justice Eyre, on delivering judgment in the famous case of Boulton v. Bull (1 Carp. R. 146-149), are so important that we shall lay them, with little abridgment, before the reader. The patent concerned in this case was that of James Watt for improvements in steam engines, at that time

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called fire-engines. It was admitted in the argument at the bar that the word "manufacture" in the statute was of extensive signification; that it applied not only to things made, but to the practice of making, to principles carried into practice in a new manner, to new results of principles carried into practice.

The effect produced by Hartley's invention for securing buildings from fire is no substance or composition of things; it is a mere negative quality—the absence of fire. This effect is produced by a new method of disposing iron plates in buildings. In the nature of things, the patent could not be for the effect produced. I think it could not be for the making the plates of iron, which, when disposed in a particular manner, produce the effect; for those are things in common use. But the invention consisting in the method of disposing those plates of iron, so as to produce their effect, and that effect being a useful and meritorious one, the patent seems to have been very properly granted to him for his method of securing buildings from fire. . . . In the list of patents with which I have been furnished, there are several for new methods of manufacturing articles in common use, where the sole merit and the whole effect produced are the saving of time and expense, and thereby lowering the price of the article, and introducing it into more general use. Now, I think these methods may be said. to be new manufactures, in one of the common acceptations of the word; as we speak of the manufacture of glass, or of any other thing of that kind. The advantages to the public from improvements of this kind are, beyond all calculation, important to a commercial country, and the ingenuity of artists who turn their thoughts towards such improvements is in itself deserving of encouragement; and in my apprehension it is strictly agreeable to the spirit and meaning of the

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