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a patent. If two join in the invention, it must be taken out in their joint names, and each has the right to use the invention independently of the other. In applying for the patent, no oath or declaration is required, as in England and the United States, but the applicant is considered the true and first inventor till proved the contrary by the rightful owner of the invention. An inventor who has assigned his invention to the party who patents it is debarred, by that assignment, from contesting the validity of the patent, but such assignment, if made out of the Republic, must be legalised by a notary and French Consul to be accepted in French courts without other evidence.

A public functionary cannot legally patent an invention relating to the branch of service in which he is directly employed, but he can patent an invention in another line.

For the first year of the existence of a patent no one but the patentee, or others holding rights under him, can obtain a certificate of addition based on the said patent, but any one during that period

can

cover an improvement on the said invention by an independent patent, or he can file a secret application for such a certificate. In the latter case, if the improvements be not claimed by the original patentee before the expiration of the said year, such certificate or certificates are granted to their respective applicants in order of priority of application. In such cases, neither the owner of the original patent, nor that of the certificate of addition, can use the other's invention without license.

If specially asked for, a delay of one year from the date of application is allowed before the patent specification is made public, but there is some doubt whether an action for infringement can be commenced before the publication of the patent.

Subject to the above, the specifications with their drawings are now printed and published immediately after grant, and can be purchased at two francs each. One copy is, however, sent free to the patentee, who has three months to point out any errors that there may be in it, when they will be corrected. After this period the document will be considered as an authentic copy of his specification.

Patent specifications and drawings are now published (unless a delay as aforesaid has been specially petitioned for) in separate form immediately after grant. Cost, 2 francs each. The payment of tax after the proper time has expired can now be effected, and the patent revalidated by the payment of an extra tax, which with agency charges comes to about 155. if the delay has been less than a month; £1 if less than two months; and £1 55. if less than three months.

See also "Union for Protection of Industrial Property."

After the first year of the life of a patent any one can obtain certificates of addition based thereon.

If one man employs another to invent, the employer is legally the true inventor of any resulting invention.

Also the inventions of employés, relating to the trade in which they are employed, belong to their employers.

Rights conferred by Patent.-A patent gives the sole right of making, selling, or using for commercial purposes the patented article or process on French territory, and of preventing the importation of the articles patented, or made by patented process.

A patent cannot extinguish rights already existing at the date of the patent; consequently, if any person be secretly in possession of the patented invention and using it at the date of the patentthough such use will not invalidate the patent

he can continue to use it during the entire period of the patent in defiance of the patentee.

During the continuance of the patent, the inventor can make additions to his specifications at any time, obtaining a certificate of addition therefor to expire with the original patent, and not subject to any other tax than that paid on applying for the certificate.

Certificates of addition secured by a person having an interest in the original patent form parts of the principal patent in the eye of the law, and the registered purchaser of a principal patent can enter an action for infringement of a certificate of addition, granted to the original patentee of the principal patent, though the certificate be not mentioned in his deeds of transfer.

If the owner of a patent, after being shown or convinced in any way that his patent is invalid, use it as a means of menacing his rivals in trade or their customers, he is liable to fine or imprisonment under the criminal code.

What can be Patented. As a rule, any new industrial product or new means or new application of old means for obtaining an industrial product can be patented.

The following are not patentable, however :

(1) Pharmaceutical compositions or remedies of any kind, the said objects remaining subject to the special laws and regulations for these matters, and especially to the decree of August 18th, 1810, relating to secret remedies.

(2) Schemes and combinations referring to credit and finances.

New designs (not involving any inventive talent or any new principle or new result) cannot be validly patented, but can be protected by filing them at the secrétariat du conseil des prud'hommes.

Ornamental and other designs in sculpture are fully protected without such filing under the law of July 19th, 1793.

The following have all been decided to be patentable inventions, provided they produce a new industrial result:

(a) A new process for producing an old article. (b) A new application of a known means or process, or the application of a known means process in a known way to an entirely different industry.

or

(c) The new practical application of a known chemical fact or theory.

(d) The new combination of two or more old parts or old processes.

(e) The mere alteration of the order in which certain steps in a known process are taken. (f) The mere alteration of relative proportions or quantities, or even degree of temperature at which an old combination, compound, or process is worked.

(g) The application of an old substance, process, or machine to a use not analogous to any to which it had been applied previously.

(h) The mere omission of one part of a known process, or of one ingredient in a known compound hitherto supposed to be necessary to that process, or to the purposes for which the compound is applied, is patentable, if it produce the same result as the complete combination did, while saving the expense of the discarded part.

The mere use or employment of an old article in a new way, or the use of a machine or process hitherto used for manufacturing one substance—say, linen-to manufacturing another material-say, cotton or silkis not patentable, unless a new industrial effect is

produced thereby not analogous to that produced heretofore.

Similarly, mere changes of form, dimensions, or materials are not patentable, unless they produce a new industrial result, or a novelty in the process.

A greatly superior yield, if directly resulting from the alteration or change, is a new industrial result; but the mere cheapening or improving of a known product, by greater skill in manufacture, is not a patentable invention.

A new industrial result is not patentable in itself, but only the means or process by which it is obtained, or the new product resulting therefrom.

A new industrial result need not be useful in order to be patentable; it is sufficient that it be novel; and in an action for infringement it is no defence that the patent infringed is useless; but this point can be considered by the judge in estimating damages.

The juges du fait have, in the first instance, the decision as to whether an invention be validly patentable, and from them appeal can be made to a superior court.

The patent must be limited to a single principal object, with the details that constitute it, and its applications, which should all be carefully enumerated and described.

In practice, the officials are generally liberal on the point as to what can be patented in one application, but some persons who have been in charge of the Patent Office have been much stricter than others. As a very exceptional case, we once obtained a patent for a Liverpool inventor, having more than three hundred drawings, and corresponding letterpress, the principal object being the manufacture of salt, and the objects of detail being the arrangements of plant and details of about forty different varieties of machines for treating salt. It was,

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