194 PROTECTION OF INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY. into the country, and annulling patents, is the same as the French. The law against infringements, especially in the case of second offences, is very severe. Turkish patents do not extend to Bosnia, Bulgaria, Egypt, or Cyprus, and are of doubtful value in the other tributary states. Usual costs: Patent invention, £24. Patent of addition, alteration, or improvement, £24. Proving working, usually about £12. Petitions to extend time for working, £5 10s. in any case. Assignments, £8. Annual tax, including agency fee, £5 4s. 10d. UNION FOR THE PROTECTION OF INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY. The following States :-Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain (with right to introduce any of her colonies or dependencies willing to join), Holland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Servia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunis, the United States, the Dutch colonies of Curaçao and Surinam, and the English ones of Gold Coast, Malta, Queensland, New Zealand, Tasmania, and West Australia, and thus practically the Australian Commonwealth itself, have formed themselves into a Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, "with power to add to their number." An International Office is maintained at Berne at the expense of the Union. Patentees having industrial or commercial establishments in any one country of the Union can import their patent articles into any other country of the Union without forfeiture of patent INTERNATIONAL UNION-UNITED STATES. 195 rights. And the application for a patent for an invention in any country of the Union by subjects, residents, or persons having industrial or commerical establishments in that country, gives provisional protection in all the others for twelve months, but without prejudice to rights of other parties existing at the date of such application. In several of the states this protection is obtained automatically by the filing of an application in the home country, but in others there is no protection unless the forms be complied with. Thus in Great Britain applications under the Convention require a special form, and involve about £2 extra cost; a certified copy of the foreign patent application documents having to be filed with other documents. The following countries practically give to subjects of Great Britain all the advantages of the Convention without having actually joined it-Canada, India, Australia, East African Protectorate, Transvaal, Southern Nigeria, Lagos, Seychelles Islands, Uraguay, and Paraguay. In each country of the Union, citizens or subjects of states, members of the Union have three years to work their inventions even when the compulsory working clause of the country requires it being done in a shorter period. This in some countries, however, applies only to patents obtained avowedly under the convention. UNITED STATES. (Population, 70,000,000.) Kinds and Duration of Patents.-There are two kinds of patents—patents of invention and patents of design. There is also a kind of provisional protection called a caveat. The duration of a patent of invention is seventeen years, which can be extended only by a special Act of the United States Congress. Patents of design are granted for the mere shape or configuration of an article and at the option of the applicant for three and a half, seven, or fourteen years. Caveats are granted, for particulars see page 198, for one year renewable indefinitely, and are merely to enable the owner of an invention not yet sufficiently advanced for patenting to provisionally protect the same. Except where otherwise stated the following matter relates only to patents of invention :— Who can Patent.-Any person, citizen, or alien, even a minor or married woman, being the original inventor, executor, or administrator (appointed by the supreme court of the district of Columbia), of original inventor can obtain a patent. There is one exception to this, however, no employé of the Patent Office can validly obtain any interest in a patent except by inheritance. A patent can be assigned before issue and the assignment recorded, in which case it is issued to the assignee. What is Patentable." Any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new or useful improvement on any art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter," can form the subject of a valid patent. The invention, to fulfil the definition "useful," must be capable of some use, but the amount of utility is legally unimportant. A patent can only cover a single invention, but that invention may consist of several parts or combinations, all tending to a common manufacture, and working one with another to the same end when the principle involved in the combination is newwhen in fact it is a "pioneer" invention; improvements, however, of two known and old parts of one machine cannot be patented in one patent, such, for instance, as an improved fly-wheel and an improved piston used in the same engine. Similarly a process and a machine for working that process, or a machine and its product, require separate patents; but a process of manufacturing a product and that product can be covered in one application. The American practice is much stricter than the English on this point. Rights Conferred by Patent.-A patent gives the sole right of making, using, selling, or importing the patented invention from the date of the patent and of licensing others to do so. When a patent is granted, the right in the subjectmatter relates back to the time of the invention, so that the party who has practised the invention, between the time of the discovery and the issuing of the patent, must cease to do so, or can be sued for infringement. The same is true of acts done in violation of a patent which is surrendered and reissued on account of defects in the specification (see page 203). Any person, however, who has purchased or constructed any newly invented machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, prior to the application for a patent by the inventor or discoverer, has a right to use, and vend to others to be used, the specific machine, manufacture, or composition of matter so made or purchased-without liability to the owner of the patent. Novelty. Each application in America is rigidly examined as regards novelty; there being a staff of one commissioner, one assistant commissioner, about one hundred examiners and assistant examiners, and a large number of clerks and copyists. The invention must not have been in public use or on sale in the United States more than two years previous to the application, must not have been abandoned to the public, and must not have been fully described in any printed publication, more than two years prior to the date of the American application, or have been published or patented by another party in any country prior to its invention by the applicant, and no foreign patent for the same invention must have expired prior to the application of the United States patent. Nor will United States patent be granted after the grant of a foreign patent for the same invention to the applicant or other party if the application for the foreign patent was dated more than twelve months before the application in America. By "full description" is meant such description as would enable a competent workman to work the invention successfully, without experiment or inventive talent. The mere use, however, of the invention abroad will not prevent any other person who may invent it independently, from validly patenting it in America, provided it has not previously been fully patented by any other person in any other country, or appeared anywhere in print prior to his invention of the same in the United States or of his introduction of it therein. The American Patent Office is the most perfect institution of the kind in the world, but unfortunately has twice suffered seriously by fire, once in 1836, when the entire records, models, etc., were burnt; and again in 1877, when a large wing of the beautiful museum of models was destroyed. Caveats. Any citizen, or subject, or person domiciled in the United States or any country of the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property having an unperfected invention which he wishes to provisionally protect while making a model or experimenting to perfect it, can file for a small fee a "caveat" in the Patent Office, setting forth the distinguishing features of his invention, and praying for the protection of his right till he has matured his invention. The |