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(viz. the one under the second patent) was not any manner of manufacture for which letters patent could be lawfully granted. The jury gave their verdict in favour of the defendant, but the verdict was set aside, and a new trial granted on the ground of misdirection. The judge, it will have been observed, treated the conclusion to be drawn from the evidence as a matter of law; whereas he ought to have left it to the jury to say whether fresh and spent madder had different properties, chemical or otherwise, or whether they were the same thing, with the difference only that part of the colouring matter had been already extracted. If the properties of the two substances were different, the invention was a new manufacture; but if the two things were the same, except that one was more charged with colouring matter than the other, in that case the invention claimed would simply have been the application of a process already known, producing a known result. The object to which the process was applied not being different from that to which it had been formerly applied, in which case there would have been no new invention, it was for the jury to say, upon the evidence, whether the invention was a new manufacture or not. (Steiner v. Heald, 6 Exch. Rep. 607.)

The most important case decided of late years with reference to the interpretation of specifications is that of Betts v. Menzies, in the House of Lords (10 H. L. C. 117), in which it was held that even where there is an identity of language in two specifications, if such identity consist merely in technical terms, it must be considered impossible for the judge to predicate what exact meaning the first patentee attributed to sucl terms, if any long interval of time, such as the in terval from 1804 to 1848, elapsed between the tw specifications. Under these circumstances the judg

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that the description of the mode of manufacture as set out in the specification had been conclusively proved to be sufficient for all practical purposes. The four law lords were unanimously of opinion that since it was shown in evidence that the patented article had been made by following the instructions of the specification, the judges of the Court of Appeal ought not to have disregarded this, nor to have relied upon their own opinions that they, persons practically unacquainted with the subject, would not have been able to manufacture the article without more instructions than the specification contained.

CHAPTER VIII.

OPPOSITIONS TO THE GRANT OF PATENTS.

AN inventor's application for a patent may be opposed under the eleventh section of the Patent Act of 1883, which enacts that any person may at any time within two months from the date of the advertisement of the acceptance of a complete specification, give notice at the Patent Office of opposition to the grant of the patent. The opponent is restricted to three grounds; viz., that the applicant had obtained the invention from him, or from a person of whom he is the legal representative, or (2) that the invention had been patented in this country on an application of prior date, or (3) that an examiner had reported to the Comptroller that the specification appeared to him to comprise the same invention as was comprised in a specification bearing the same or a similar title, and accompanying a previous application. Where such notice is given the comptroller will give notice of the opposition to the applicant, and will, on the expiration of those two months, after hearing the applicant and the person so giving notice, if desirous of being heard, decide on the case, but subject to appeal to the law officer. As to the procedure in cases of opposition before the Comptroller, see rules 32-41 of the Patents Rules, 1883. The notice of opposition must state the grounds of opposition. When a ground of opposition is that the invention has been previously patented, the

title, number, and date of the alleged prior specification must be duly specified. The opponent's evidence in support of his case and the applicant's evidence in reply must be in the form of statutory declarations. At the hearing before the Comptroller no matter can be gone into which has not been stated in the notice of opposition. In case of appeal to the law officer he will hear the applicant and the person giving notice if entitled, in the opinion of the law officer, to be heard in opposition to the grant, and will determine whether the grant ought or ought not to be made. The law officer may, if he thinks fit, obtain the assistance of an expert. The rules of the law officers in regard to proceedings before them in cases of appeal will be found in the appendix. The evidence used before the law officer will be the same as that used at the hearing before the Comptroller, and no further evidence can be given save as to matters which occurred or came to the knowledge of either party after the date of the decision appealed against, except with the leave of the law officer obtained on special application. The law officer may at the request of either party order the attendance at the hearing for the purpose of being cross-examined of any person who has made a declara

tion.

By the thirty-eighth section of the Act the law officers are empowered to examine witnesses on oath and to administer oaths for that purpose.

It would seem, from the language of the eleventh section, that, in the first instance before the Comptroller, any member of the public may oppose the grant on the second and third grounds mentioned in the first subsection, but that, in case of appeal, the law officer has power to determine whether the person opposing is entitled to be heard (subsect. 3).

When patents were sealed with the Great Seal a

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