interrupted for two entire consecutive years except by circumstances beyond control of the patentee or accident duly certified by the office, otherwise the patent becomes void. Infringement is a criminal offence, punishable with. fine of from 50 to 500 piastres (about £7 to £70), or imprisonment of from one to six months (second offence within five years, penalty doubled). The counterfeit articles are also confiscated to the patentee, and the latter can obtain costs and damages from the infringer. The sole defences allowed are invalidity of patent or right of ownership in patent. It is considered an aggravation of the offence if the infringer has been in the service or confidence of the patentee, or has obtained the information surreptitiously. Besides damages for infringement and the confiscation to him of the counterfeited articles, the patentee or informer obtains half of the fine. Illegal use of the word "Patent," or exhibiting for sale (or even giving away), infringements on a patent, subjects the offender to the above-mentioned fines or imprisonment. These laws are easily put in force. There are annual taxes as below : Usual Cost: Patent .15 years £52 10 years £34 £32 plus £1 10s. a £32 plus £3 a year run. Annual taxes including agency in respect of fiveyear patents, before end of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years, £4; before end of 4th year, £4 5s. ; in respect of ten-year patents, before end of first seven years, £4 each; before end of 8th and 9th years, £5 8s.; in respect of fifteen-year patents, before end of first ten years, £4; before end of 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th years, £6 12s. Registering a trade mark, £12. COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, IN CLUDING TASMANIA. (Population, 5,000,000.) Until 1904 each state or colony in the Commonwealth granted patents for its own territory only. There is now one patent law for the entire Commonwealth, and each new patent extends to the whole of Australia and Tasmania, unless some state be specially excepted in such patent. Who may Patent.-Any inventor, whether subject or alien, or his assignee, attorney, agent, nominee or legal representative or a person to whom any such individual being abroad at the time communicates the invention to, or any two or more of these may apply for a patent. Kinds and Duration of Patents.-Provisional protection for nine months, complete patent for fourteen years, and patents of addition to expire with the principal patent. Examination System.-All complete applications or final specifications following a provisional application and all patents of addition, are examined by an Examiner to ascertain whether they are in order, and fulfil the rules, and whether they are patented in the Commonwealth or in any of its states on application of prior date. Upon this report the Comptroller either accepts the application, or refuses it conditionally, or in toto, or requires an amendment. The applicant has the opportunity of amending or appealing to the High or Supreme Court. If the application be not accepted, the papers are kept secret; and with the exception above mentioned, the Examiners' reports are also kept absolutely private. Accepted applications are published, and for three months are open to opposition by interested parties on the ground that the invention is not new, or has been abandoned to the public, or forms the subject of a prior application for a patent in Australia, or in any of the states by himself or any other party whom he may at the time officially represent, or that the status of the applicant as regards his ownership of the patent is not as stated. In some cases the result of an opposition may be the proving that an invention is unpatentable as regards one or more of the states, in consequence, for instance, of prior applications of separate state patents while it is a valid application in the remaining states of the Commonwealth. In such case a patent may be granted for those states only in which the invention appears to be patentable. A prior patent or publication more than fifty years old cannot be brought against an application or patent. The invalidity of one or more claims of a patent has no effect on the validity of other claims. This is a very valuable improvement over the English practice. Taxes. A patent goes void at the end of seven years if a tax of £6 including agency be not paid before the expiration of those seven years from the date of application; but if through accident, mistake, or inadvertence the tax be not paid in time, the Comptroller has power to accept payment any time within a year, but an additional fine, varying with the amount of time which has elapsed must be paid, and if there be any proceedings in respect of infringement committed in the interim, a court has the option of refusing to award damages in respect of such infringements. Patents can be extended beyond the fourteen years on petition to the Supreme Court on very similar terms to those that hold good in England with regard to the Privy Council. Patents of Addition are granted for improvements on, additions to, or modifications of, the principal patent. They expire with the principal patent, and must be substantially for the purposes for which the original patent was applied. In all other respects the law is substantially similar to that of Great Britain. The various states have joined the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, and the Commonwealth has made provision in its Act to enable it to do so. Usual cost: Original Patent, Provisional Protection, £5; completing the same, £16; or complete protection at start, £19. Patent of Addition, Provisional, £3 10s.; completing, £13; or complete at start, £16. Tax at end of seventh year on principal patent, £6; on Patent of addition, £3 IOS. Trade Marks at present must be protected in each state separately, there being no trade mark law for the whole Commonwealth. But an Act is rapidly being passed through the legislature, and in Dec. 1905, in all probability, there will be one trade mark law for the entire commonwealth. AUSTRIA (INCLUDING BOSNIAN PROVINCES, BUT NOT HUNGARY). (Population, 27,000,000.) Kind and Duration of Patents.-Patents of invention are granted for fifteen years, subject to an annual tax. Patents of addition are granted for improvements on existing patents, to expire with the original patent, and subject only to application fees and a tax of 25 florins to be paid within three months of the grant; but in case the original patent is revoked, annulled, or renounced, the patent of addition can be continued, as an original patent, to fifteen years from the date of the original patent, by payment of the taxes that would have been due on the original patent. Who can Patent. The true and first inventor or his assignee or representative has alone the right of patenting an invention, but the first applicant will be considered the inventor till proved not to be so by the real inventor or his representative or assignee. All contracts between employers and employees that the future inventions of the latter shall be the property of the former are of themselves null and void, but an employé can sell to his employer any given invention he may be possessed of. What can be Patented. Any new manufacture or process of manufacture can be patented unless it be (1) immoral or contrary to public health, or (2) a medicine, (3) a disinfectant, (4) a chemical substance, (5) a food for human beings, or (6) appertaining to an article which is a monopoly of State. A process for manufacture of any article under the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th heads is patentable. Novelty. The invention to be patentable must not have been fully described in print in any country, publicly worked, exhibited, or previously patented in the realm. The Government can, however, by notice in the Patent Journal, exempt the official Patent Office publications of any given country from being considered publications under this head. Any one, however, who has privately used the invention before the date of the patent in his own works or elsewhere |