taken out solely for an abstract philosophical principle-for instance, for any law of nature or any property of matter, apart from any mode of turning it to account in the practical operations of manufacture, or the business, and arts, and utilities of life. The mere discovery of such a principle is not an invention in the patent-law sense of the term. Stating such a principle in a patent may be a promulgation of the principle, but it is no application of the principle to any practical purpose. And without that application of the principle to a practical object and end, and without the application of it to human industry or to the purposes of human enjoyment, a person cannot in the abstract appropriate a principle to himself. But a patent will be good, though the subject of the patent consists in the discovery of a great general and most comprehensive principle in science or law of nature, if that principle is by the specification applied to any special purpose, so as thereby to effectuate a practical result and benefit not previously attained. . . . It is no longer an abstract principle. It comes to be a principle turned to account to a practical object, and applied to a special result. It becomes then not an abstract principle, which means a principle considered apart from any special purpose or practical observation, but the discovery and statement of a principle for a special purpose, that is, a practical invention, a mode of carrying a principle into effect. . . . The instant that the principle, although discovered for the first time, is stated in actual application to, and as the agent of, producing a certain specified effect, it is no longer an abstract principle; it is then clothed with the language of practical application, and receives the impress of tangible direction to the actual business of life.'

Minter's patent was for an improvement in the construction of chairs, which consisted in the application of a self-adjusting leverage to the back and seat of a chair, whereby the weight on the seat acted as a counter-balance to the pressure against the back. The patentee having obtained a verdict at the trial of an action for the infringe

ment of the patent, it was contended, on a motion for a nonsuit, that the patentee had claimed a principle, and not any particular means of carrying the principle into effect. Now, to a principle per se he was not entitled; and as to the particular means adopted, the defendant had not borrowed it. The plaintiff, it was further argued, had attempted to appropriate by his specification one of the first principles in mechanics, viz. the lever. 'But,' said Lord Lyndhurst, C. B., it is not a leverage only, but it is a self-adjusting leverage; and it is not a self-adjusting leverage only, but it is a self-adjusting leverage producing a particular effect, by means of which the weight on the seat counterbalances the pressure on the back of a chair.' And Parke, B., said, 'For the application of a self-adjusting leverage to a chair, cannot he patent that? He claims the combination of the two, no matter in what shape or way you combine them; but if you combine the self-adjusting leverage, which he thus applies to the subject of a chair, that is an infringement of the patent.' Lord Lyndhurst went on to say that the application of a self-adjusting leverage producing the effect constituted the machine, and the patentee claimed that machine, and the right to make it, by the application of a self-adjusting leverage producing a particular effect. (Minter v. Wells, 1 W. P. C. 134.)

Again, Sir W. P. Wood, V. C., said in Dangerfield v. Jones (13 L. T. N. s. 142), 'If, having a particular purpose in view, you take the general principles of mechanics and apply one or other of them to a manufacture to which it has never been before applied, that is a sufficient ground for taking out a patent, provided that the Court sees that which has been invented is new, desirable, and for the public benefit.'

In the case of the Electric Telegraph Company v. Brett (10 C. B. R. 838) it was argued that the giving of duplicate signals at intermediate stations was not the proper subject of a patent, being an idea or principle only, and not a new manufacture. But it was held by the Court, that as the patentees had not only communicated the idea or principle,

but showed how it might be carried into effect, viz. by appropriate apparatus at each station, the patent was valid.

See also the remarks upon this subject of Sir G. Jessel, M. R., in the case of Otto v. Linford (46 L. T. N. s. 39, Goodeve Patent Cases, 343).

PROCESSES.

It will have been observed that what the statute of King James excepts from the operation of the invalidating first clause is the privilege of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures. Now it seems to have been at one time doubted whether a mere method or process was embraced by these words of the statute. Perhaps, said Lord Tenterden, C. J., in the case of Rex v. Wheeler (2 B. & A. 350), the statute may extend to a new process to be carried on by known implements, or elements acting upon known substances, and ultimately producing some other known substance, but producing it in a cheaper or more expeditious manner, or of a better and more useful kind.' The current of decision since Lord Tenterden's time has converted what he put in a doubtful way into a certainty; for the books are full of cases which prove beyond a doubt that a process is patentable. The patent contested in Gibson v. Brand (1 W. P. C. 631) was for a new or improved process or manufacture of silk. Tindal, C. J., said that there was strong reason to suppose that a patent for a process, in the strict or proper sense of the term, might be good in law. Such certainly was the opinion of Chief Justice Eyre in Boulton v. Bull (1 Carp. R. 146). 'It was admitted in the argument at the bar that the word "manufacture" in the statute was of extensive signification; that it applied not only to things made, but to the practice of making, to principles carried into practice in a new manner, to new results of principles carried into practice.'

It has been said that the doubt as to whether a process is patentable has been needlessly raised, and that it is a misuse of terms to speak of a patentable process at all. The subject-matter of the patent, it is urged, is in reality a manufacture according to a new process, and this is there

fore a new manufacture. For example, in Crane v. Price (1 W. P. C. 377), the subject of the patent was, according to this view, the manufacture of iron by means of a new process, viz. the combination of a hot-air blast and anthracite in the furnace. In Gibson v. Brand it was the manu

facture of silk by a new process.

We are told by Sir F. Pollock, C. B. (Stevens v. Keating, 2 W. P. C. 182), that the real invention may be, not so much the thing when produced, as the mode in which it is produced; and its novelty may consist, not so much in its existence as a new substance, as in its being an old substance, but produced by a different process. In one sense, an old substance produced by a new process is a new manufacture; of that there cannot be a doubt; and therefore, although the language of the Act has been said to apply only to manufactures and not to processes, when you come to examine, either literally, or even strictly, it appears to me the expression "manufacture" is free from objection, because, though an old thing, if made in a new way, the very making of it in a new way makes it a new manufacture. Therefore, although I think this is a patent for the process rather than the product, I think it may be a patent for the product.'

Allowing this explanation its full force, it will not extend to many cases wherein it has been decided that bare processes are patentable, or to cases where patents for mere applications have been supported. For example, in Forsyth v. Riviere (1 Carp. Rep. 401), the application of a known detonating powder to the discharge of known kinds of fire-arms was held to be a patentable invention. But how could this be a manufacture in the ordinary meaning of the word? Again, in the case of Hartley's Patent (1 W. P. C. 54), it was held that the application of metal plates, made in the ordinary way, to ships and buildings, with the view of protecting them against fire, by preventing the access of air, was a patentable invention. Again, in the case of the Electric Telegraph Company v. Brett (10 C. B. R. 838), a method of giving duplicate signals at

intermediate stations was held to be properly the subject of a patent. In none of these cases was any new substance produced, nor any new machinery employed. Most certainly the exposition of the statute, as far as usage will expound it, has gone very much beyond the letter' (Eyre, C. J., in Boulton v. Bull, 1 Carp. R. 146); and Lord Chief Justice Tindal's remarks in Cornish v. Keene (1 W. P. C. 508) show the latitude of interpretation which is given to the word manufactures' in the Act of Parliament. It has a very wide and extended meaning. You may call it almost invention.' Again, Coleridge, J., said, in Bush v. Fox (Macr. P. C. 176), manufacture includes both process and result. And in Ralston v. Smith (11 H. L. C. 223), Lord Westbury said, 'By the large interpretation given to the word "manufacture," it not only comprehends productions, but it also comprehends the means of producing them. Therefore, in addition to the thing produced it will comprehend a new machine, or a new combination of machinery; it will comprehend a new process or an improvement of an old process.'

In Newall v. Elliott (13 W. R. 11) the patent was for 'improvements in apparatus employed in laying down submarine telegraph wires;' and the specification, after describing the apparatus, concluded with the following claim: First, coiling the wire or cable round a cone; secondly, the supports placed cylindrically outside the coil round the cone; thirdly, the use of the rings in combination with the cone as described.' It was objected that the invention thus claimed was merely a mode of coiling and paying out cables, and was not a new manufacture, and could not, therefore, be the subject-matter of a patent. The Court, however, over-ruled the objection, and held the patent valid.

Previous to the patent granted to Wallington, gelatine had been made by submitting large pieces of hide to the action of caustic alkali, and by employing blood to clarify the product. Wallington's process consisted in cutting the hides into thin slices, and the use of blood was unneces