in the realm, or has made proper arrangements for using the same, can continue in such works to exploit the invention (for his own use or business only) without let or hindrance from the patentee.

Rights Conferred by Patent.-A patent confers on its owner the exclusive right to make, use, exercise, or sell the invention in the realm, and if it be for a process, this right extends to all products made by such process, even though themselves unpatentable. The Government has the right of using or appropriating in whole or in part or annulling a patent relating to munitions of war or other patent likely to be useful to the State, and giving such recompense as with the assistance of experts it thinks fair to the patentees.

All applications for patents are examined by the official examiner (and by experts called in for the purpose should the office require their services), and the applicant may be called upon to amend or subdivide his application. Against all decisions of the officials appeal can be had to the Patent Court.

Assignments and Licenses. These can be made as in England and registered, but till registered they are not binding on third parties, and they take effect in their order of registration, the first registered taking priority over a later registration even though the last registered document was the first executed.

Compulsory Licenses. If after the first three years of its duration a patent is not publicly worked by the inventor sufficiently to supply the reasonable demands of the public, or another patentee has a patent which requires for its economical working the use of such prior patent, the patentee can be compelled by the Patent Office to grant licenses at reasonable rates.

Renunciations and Revocations.-A patent can be renounced by a patentee or whole or part owner, and thus the latter can escape all costs in subsequent

actions for annulment, but such renunciation only affects the person making it, the rights of other owners of the patent being unaffected by it.

Working. A patent can be revoked if the patentee do not work the same or make arrangements for others to work it to a convenient extent, and this, even during the first three years of duration if the invention be worked abroad and the public interest demands such revocation. In practice the courts admit as proof of working at the termination of the first three years, the mere commencement of working, such as making a distinctive part of the machine, but if this be not gone on with vigorously and the entire invention set to work-or if the inventor supplies the demand mainly from abroad— the patent will be declared void.

This revocation will not, however, be decreed until after the patentee has had due warning and has continued to leave the patent unworked.

A patent can be annulled if it be found to have been illegally granted or the invention be not new or patentable at the date of the patent.

A patent can be transferred by a court to the rightful owner if it be proved that the invention was made by, and fraudulently taken from, another party claiming it.

Infringements are punishable by fine, by confiscation to the State of the infringing articles, and the payment of costs and damages to the patentee, and the publication of the sentence at the expense of the infringer. Where a patented process for a new article is infringed all articles of the same nature will be considered to have been made by the patented process, and be infringements, until proved not to be such.

Any person can demand of the courts an authoritative decision whether any given manufacture he is engaged in or intends to engage in is an infringement

of any given patent. This decision obtained is conclusive against the patentee.

Taxes. There are annual and progressively increasing taxes to be paid on each patent of invention, otherwise it becomes void. These taxes must be paid on or before the anniversary of publication of the application for the patent in the Patent Journal, or within three months of that day with an additional tax of ten shillings.

The taxes (with agency) on a patent of invention, amount to before end of 1st year, £3 10s.; 2nd year, £4; 3rd year, £5; 4th year, 6; 5th year, £7; 6th year, £9; 7th year, L11; 8th year, £13; 9th year, £15; 10th year, 19; 11th year, £23; 12th year, 27; 13th year, 31; 14th year, £35. Cost of patent of invention or of addition,

including the 25 florin tax, within
three months of the grant.

£14

Cost of registering a design, £8. If more than three are registered at once, all, after the first three, are 1 10s. each. The registration covers Hungary. Cost of working and proving same from £9. Trade mark registration for Austria-Hungary, £7.

BAHAMAS.

(Population, 56,000.)

Law is similar to those of Barbadoes, but the cost

of application is £35.

After taxes, as in Barbadoes.

BARBADOES.

(Population, 200,000.)

The British Act has been re-enacted substantially in Barbadoes with the following alterations. An assignee can obtain a patent, and the costs are nearly

doubled. The old taxes formally prevailing in England-before end of 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th years, of (including agency) £11 each; before end of 8th and 9th, 16 each; and before end of each remaining year, £21- —are substituted for the present English taxes.

Usual Cost: Provisional Protection, nine months, £8; completing same, £15; or complete at start, £19. Taxes, including agency, end of 3rd and 7th years, £12 and £22 respectively.

BELGIUM.

(Population 7,000,000.)

Varieties and Duration of Patents.-Patents are of three kinds : Patents of Invention (including those taken out under the rules of the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, of which Belgium is a member, see p. 194), Patents of Addition, and Patents of Importation. Except in the case of Patents of Importation, a patent is null and void (1st) if the invention have been accurately described in any printed book, circular, printed picture, or photograph, in any country, before the date of the patent; (2nd) if it have been worked in the kingdom by other than the inventor or those holding rights under him before the date of the patent; (3rd) if there be in existence, in Belgium or abroad, a patent of prior date for the same invention.

A valid patent of importation, granted only for the nominal duration of an existing foreign patent for the same invention, can, however, be obtained by the patentee of the said foreign patent, or his assigns, so long as it has not been worked commercially in Belgium previous to date of application for the Belgian patent by parties not holding rights under the said patentee, or his agents or assigns. It may have been described in books printed by

Government authority, but if fully described in print in Belgium, in works other than official, before the date of application, the patent becomes void.

Patents of Invention are granted for twenty years, subject, however, to the payment of an annual tax of twenty francs before the end of the first year, thirty francs before the end of the second, and so on, increasing ten francs each year. Payment of these taxes must be made within the calendar month during which they come due, but can, in default, be made good by paying the tax and an additional fine of ten francs any time within six months of the date they come due.

Patents of Importation last only for the term for which the foreign patent upon which they were based (usually the one of longest duration) was originally granted, and are subject to the above annual tax, and limited by the term of twenty years from the date of application.

Patents can be prolonged by special Act of legislature, but this rarely takes place.

Patents of Addition are for improvements on existing patents, and can be taken out by the inventor of the original patent of invention or importation, or any other person having a vested interest in it. They are granted free of annual tax for the remainder of the terms of the original patent; but the annulment of the latter (except for non-payment of tax) does not entail necessarily the loss of the patent of addition. The owner of a patent of addition on a patent owned by another cannot, however, work the original patent without a license, and vice versa. If, however, the original patentee declines to keep up the patent, the patentee of the addition can pay the annuities for him, so as to keep his own patent up, but even then cannot use the original patent without a license.