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monopolies, grants, and letters patent, for the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using of anything within the realm, were contrary to the laws, and void. But it excepted from the operation of this enactment all letters patent and grants of privilege of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures to the true and first inventor of such manufacture, which others at the time of making such letters patent and grants should not use, so they be not contrary to law, nor mischievous to the state, by raising prices of commodities at home, or hurt of trade, or generally inconvenient. It was afterwards declared that these excepted grants of privilege should have the same validity that they had previous to the passing of the statute, but no other. It is to be observed' (said Lord Justice James in the case of Von Heyden v. Neustadt, 50. L. J. N. s. 126), that the statute of James gives no right to the inventor. The statute is a statute for the abolishing and forbidding monopolies, and the sixth section under which the Crown acts in these matters is a mere proviso excepting from the operation of that Act certain patents or grants of privileges, which are to be "of such force as they should be if that Act had never been made and of none other." And it is from the ancient power and prerogative of the Crown so saved and preserved that every patentee derives his monopoly. What the Crown could lawfully do, and has lawfully done, after that statute, is shown by the uniform tenor of the letters patent which have been since issued, issued by the advice and authority of every law officer and every holder of the Great Seal for upwards of two centuries and a half. The power of the Crown to grant letters patent of such tenor has never been brought in question.'

When the validity of a monopoly comes into question,

the first point to consider is, whether it is rendered void by the statute; and secondly, if it should not be thereby avoided, whether it is a privilege permitted by the common law.

In this treatise, however, we restrict ourselves to a consideration of Patents for inventions. It is not every kind of discovery that can be protected by a patent. The statute of James I. and the decisions of our courts of law, require a patentable invention to be referable to some manner of manufacture, in addition to the possession of the qualities of utility and novelty.

Nor is it every one who may succeed in obtaining a grant of a patent for an invention that is able to sustain it in a court of law. Patents are only valid when they have been obtained by the true and first inventor, the language of the statute of James.

Again, a patent privilege cannot be granted in perpetuum; it must not endure for more than a limited. number of years.

We shall take these things in order, and shall proceed to inquire in the following chapters

1. What is the subject-matter or nature of a patentable invention, and what are the incidents that must by law accompany it.

2. To whom patent privileges may legally be granted.

3. What is the possible duration of such privileges, and the territory over which they may extend.

These matters being disposed of, there will still remain for consideration the very important topic of a Specification the document which the law requires every patentee to draw up and make public before he obtains his patent. Chapters on some collateral subjects, such as Oppositions to the grant of a patent, Amendments, Assignments and Licences,

the Prolongation and Revocation of Patents, and the Infringement of patent rights, will then close this treatise.

In the Appendix will be found reprints of the statute of James and the Patent Act of 1883, with the Rules and Forms, and an outline of the Patent Laws of Foreign Countries and British Colonies.

6

CHAPTER II.

THE SUBJECT-MATTER OR NATURE OF A PATENTABLE INVENTION. A BARE PRINCIPLE NOT PATENTABLE.-PROCESSES. -CLASSES OF INVENTIONS. AMOUNT OF INVENTION.SECOND PATENTS.

IN proceeding to consider the subject-matter or nature of the inventions which may be legally protected by patents, it is proper to premise that no general definition can be given which shall exactly mark out what can and what cannot be included in a valid patent. Where the invention is not one of a well-known class, it will be much better for the inventor to consult some one conversant with such matters,—some one whose practical experience comes in aid of general principles, and who is bound by his profession and standing in society to the utmost secresy, than to rely altogether upon what is stated in books, or upon a narrow range of precedent. It is the more important that the inventor's attention should be drawn to this point previous to his incurring expense, since a patent is taken out entirely at the risk of the inventor, the Crown in no degree guaranteeing the validity of its grant, which, if contested, must be judged by the abstract rules of law applicable to the case.

As we have already remarked, it is not every kind of discovery which can be protected by a patent. No invention is patentable which does not fall within the language of the Act of King James and is not referable to some manner of manufacture. It is true, as we shall

see further on, that these words have received a very wide interpretation; still they have never been held to include such inventions and discoveries as that of an abstract principle without reference to any of its practical applications; or that of a game of skill or chance irrespective of the appliances for playing it; or that of a method of calculation unconnected with apparatus for working it; or that of a newly discovered vegetable suitable for food; or that of a newly discovered natural substance applicable to a useful purpose, such as guano or mineral phosphate of lime. Patents which relate to inventions such as these can only be maintained when they are taken out for the manufacture of the apparatus required for the given purpose, or for methods of preparing the natural substance for some useful end.

Before giving examples of the chief classes into which those inventions which have received the sanction of judicial decision are divisible, it may be well first to clear the ground a little by making some remarks on the cases relating to Principles and Processes. It has been repeatedly laid down by the Courts that

BARE PRINCIPLES ARE NOT PATENTABLF.

A principle may be of the utmost value in the eyes of philosophers; its discovery may lead to highly important consequences, and form the germ of a striking advance in civilisation; yet unless its discoverer can show at least one application of it to a useful purpose, -unless he can point out the means of gaining therefrom some immediate material advantage, he is not permitted to exclude his fellow-subjects from turning it to any account they like. I rather think it would be difficult' (said Lord Kenyon, in Hornblower v. Boulton, 8 T. R. 95; Dav. Pat. Ca. 221) to form a specification. of a philosophical principle; it would be something like an idea without a substratum.'

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