Who can Patent.-All inventors, Belgian or alien (except citizens of countries not granting reciprocity to Belgians), the assignees of said inventors, and practically others besides the true and first inventor, can obtain valid patents for inventions, provided they be new. If a man employs another to invent, the employer is legally the inventor. Heirs or executors of a dead inventor can patent the invention imparted to them by the deceased.

If a patentee be proved to have obtained the knowledge of his invention from the true and first inventor by fraud, the real inventor can by law obtain the transfer of the patent rights to himself, or their nullification.

Procedure. All patents applied for, if the documents be in proper form and the fees paid, are granted without examination as to novelty, and without guarantee of the Government as to sufficiency, novelty, validity, or merit.

The specification and drawings must describe the invention so accurately that any ordinary workman in the trade to which it relates can work it without making fresh experiments. In this respect, the Belgian law is almost exactly the same as the English and American.

The specification must also set forth exactly what parts are new and what old.

The patent dates from the hour of application in Belgium.

What can be Patented. Any invention, discovery, or improvement, susceptible of being worked as an object of industry or commerce, can be patented.

Medical appliances, medicines and inventions for a curative or health-preserving object, cannot be patented in Belgium, but bottles, capsules, and cases of surgical instruments can be validly protected.

So can veterinary medicines as such, but the patented article can be made and used for human beings without infringing on the patent.

Artistic and literary productions cannot be patented, but are perfectly protected under the decree 19 to 24, July, 1793.

Mere changes in form, quantity, material, or colour, cannot be patented unless productive of a new result, with this exception :

In a combination producing a new result the combination can be patented, but not the new result, and any one finding a new way of effecting that new result can obtain a valid independent patent for the new combination.

A discovery to be validly patentable must exist through human intervention—thus the discovery of a new mineral could not be patented; the discovery that gas can be purified by passing it over a certain chemical could be validly protected.

A patent cannot be granted for two inventions entirely disconnected with each other. This proviso is construed about as liberally in Belgium as it is in England, and decidedly more so than in America.

Rights conferred by Patent.-Belgian patents give substantially the same rights to their possessors that English and American ones do in their respective countries. A patent is in all respects personal property. If several persons hold a patent in common, each has the right of working it independently of the others, unless otherwise arranged by special agreement; but should any proprietor prove that another is getting heavy profits that ought equitably to be divided between the co-proprietors-such as royalty for a license-a court of equity will rectify the grievance. A license, however, granted by a partial proprietor is valid.

The patent gives the right to prosecute before the

tribunals all those who make, import, or employ commercially, sell, or expose for sale, the invention patented. Personal use of the invention, when not commercial, is no infringement. The actual manufacturer-not the man who ordered the infringement -is the person to proceed against. The author, however, of plans and specifications from which the article is made, is held to be an infringer as well as the actual manufacturer.

If a machine be patented, but not its application, the maker only can be proceeded against, not the user, even if he uses it for a commercial purpose. The possessor of a counterfeit article, or of apparatus specially designed for working a patented process, is legally an infringer, if it can be shown that the intention of the possessor of said article or apparatus was to commercially use the invention, even if no such use be proved. If, however, he possess these articles as security for a debt only, or to use them only for his personal wants, and not to make a trade of them, he is clear of infringement.

Articles passing through the realm, in transit from one foreign country to another, are not liable to seizure; this holds good for nearly all European countries.

Novelty. An invention must be new in the realm at the time of application of the patent in Belgium or (if it has been applied for under the Convention Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, page 194) at the date of the original application abroad on which it is based.

If a part be proved old, and another part of the invention be new, and the combination new, even if all three be claimed separately, the entire patent is not nullified, but only that portion claiming the old part taken separately, the new part and the combination being still validly patented.

As in England, but contrary to French law, the sale

of products of the patented machine, or process, in the realm previous to the application for the patent, destroys the validity of a patent of invention for the said machine. Publicly exhibiting the invention does not destroy the validity of a patent afterwards obtained.

The novelty of an invention is not destroyed by a prior publication in print if the latter contained only some of the elements of the invention.

Proof of private possession of the invention by a third party, prior to the date of the invention, does not invalidate the patent, but gives the possessor a legal right to infringe the patent during its continuance.

Working. A patent can be declared null and void, if it be proved that the patent is yet unworked by the inventor, his licensees and agents, or assigns, in Belgium, and has been worked abroad with the knowledge of the inventor more than one year previously; also, if said working be suspended continuously in Belgium for one whole year after it has been worked abroad. This provision of the law is very liberally interpreted in favour of the inventor, it having been decided that the working of any part of the invention or of a patent of addition, and public exhibition of the invention, or the importation of a part and granting of a license to manufacture, is a sufficient working. Practically the date of first working abroad resolves itself into the date when the proof of working was officially made to the French, Austrian, German, or other Government. The delay of one year can, prior to its expiration, frequently be prolonged another year by petition to Government. The annulment of an original patent does not entail the annulment of a patent of addition, provided the taxes are continuously paid. For patents taken out under the rules of the Union for the Protection of

Industrial Property, the time during which a patent has to be officially worked is three years from the date of application for the patent of the country of origin.

Licenses and Assignments. An exclusive license must be signed by the entire proprietary, and entails on the owners of the patent the obligation to prosecute infringers if required by the license.

Assignments and licenses of patents should (to be valid against third parties) be notified (and an extract sent) to the Department of the Interior, for registration; or should obtain a certain date," some

other way (that is, a legal proof of date). This can be done by obtaining the seal of a court, the attestation of a notary, the certificate of date of death of one of the signatories, or any other official document by which the document can be proved to have been in existence at a specified date. Registration is not necessary in this case, but is useful, and as the Government fee is only sixteen francs, and the registration is officially published, this mode of obtaining a "certain date" is that usually adopted. Licenses can also be registered. The registration fee in these cases is variable.

The vendor of a patent, in selling it, practically guarantees to the purchaser that his title to the invention is perfect, also that the patent is valid, and that everything mentioned in the specification is true; he does not guarantee in other respects the utility or success of the invention. Should any of these practical guarantees be vitiated, the purchaser can oblige the vendor to receive back the patent, and return the money. Unless a clear case of fraud be proved, these rights cannot be enforced anywhere but on French or Belgian soil.

Infringement Suits. The penalties for knowingly infringing are: the confiscation to the patentee of the counterfeit articles and all apparatus specially