publication of the complete specification (sect. 13). Sects. Under sect. 24 of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 15-17. proceedings could only be taken for acts of infringement committed after the sealing.

Patent.

16. Every patent when sealed shall have effect Extent of throughout the United Kingdom and the Isle of patent. Man.

A patent no longer applies to the Channel Islands.

17. (1.) The term limited in every patent for Term of the duration thereof shall be fourteen years from its patent; date (a).

(2.) But every patent shall, notwithstanding anything therein or in this Act, cease if the patentee fails to make the prescribed payments (3) within the prescribed (B) times.

(3.) If, nevertheless, in any case, by accident, mistake, or inadvertence, a patentee fails to make any prescribed payment within the prescribed time, he may apply to the comptroller for an enlargement of the time for making that payment (y).

(4.) Thereupon the comptroller shall, if satisfied that the failure has arisen from any of the abovementioned causes, on receipt of the prescribed fee (d) for enlargement, not exceeding ten pounds, enlarge the time accordingly, subject to the following conditions:

(a.) The time for making any payment shall not, in any case, be so enlarged for more than three months.

(a) The day of application. S. 13.

(B) See second schedule to Act, or first schedule to Patents Rules.

(7) For Form, see Patents

Forms, K.

(8) Enlargement not exceeding one month, 3., two months, 71., three months, 107. See first schedule to Patents Rules.

certificate of renewal.

Sect. 17.

Term of patent.

Notice of renewal.

Extension

(b.) If any proceeding shall be taken in respect of an infringement of the patent committed after a failure to make any payment within the prescribed time and before the enlargement thereof, the Court before which the proceeding is proposed to be taken, may, if it shall think fit, refuse to award or give any damages in respect of such infringement.

The time for which the patent is granted is fourteen years, subject to the condition that it shall cease if the patentee fails to make any prescribed payment within the prescribed times. The second schedule to the Act, and first schedule to Patents Rules, contain a list of fees payable and the times of payment. The total amount of fees payable, exclusive of the 47. paid on application and complete specification, is 1507. The patentee may pay this amount in two sums of 507. and 1007., payable before the end of the fourth and eighth years (fourth and seventh years in case of patents granted before the commencement of the Act) after date of patent respectively, or he may pay it by yearly instalments, the first to be paid before the end of the fourth year from date of patent. If the latter plan be adopted, the first four instalments are to be 107. each, the fifth and sixth 157. each, and the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, 207. each.

Seven days at least before the expiration of any period, the patentee must, if he intends to continue the patent, give notice to the comptroller in Form J (Patents Forms), transmitting the fee and enclosing a certificate of payment, stamped with fee payable, in the form contained in Form J (Patents Rules, 42-44).

The enlargement of the time in certain cases for payof time for ing the fees is new. Hitherto a patentee who inadverpayment. tently had omitted to make a prescribed payment lost the benefit of his invention, unless he obtained an Act of Parliament to make it valid.

The section permits enlargement of time where the non-payment was due to "accident, mistake, or inadvertence." It yet remains to be seen what circumstances will be held to warrant an extension of time under one or other of these heads, as it does not follow that the kind of "accident" or "mistake" which would void a

contract would require to be shown in order to obtain Sects. further time for payment.

The enlargement of time, where granted, is subject to

the conditions

1. That a fee be paid (see above).

2. That it be for not more than three months.

3. That where acts of infringement are committed between the expiration of the prescribed time for payment and the enlargement thereof, the Court, in an action for infringement, may refuse to give damages for such acts.

17, 18.

Conditions.

extension.

The application for extension is to be in Form K Applica(Patents Forms), and the circumstances under which tion for the patentee failed by accident, mistake, or inadvertence to make the payment, must be stated in detail. The comptroller may require the facts alleged to be substantiated (Patents Rules, 46).

Amendment of Specification.

specifica

18. (1.) An applicant or a patentee may, from Amendtime to time, by request (a) in writing left at the ment of patent office, seek leave to amend his specification, tion. including drawings forming part thereof, by way of disclaimer, correction, or explanation, stating the nature of such amendment and his reasons for the same (B).

(2.) The request and the nature of such proposed amendment shall be advertised in the prescribed manner (B), and at any time within one month from its first advertisement any person may give notice at the patent office of opposition to the amendment (y).

(3.) Where such notice is given, the comptroller shall give notice of the opposition to the person making the request, and shall hear and decide the case (d), subject to an appeal to the law officer.

(a) Patents Forms, Form F. Fee, if before sealing, 17. 10s. ; after sealing, 31.

(B) Patents Rules, 48.

(7) Patents Rules, 49. For

Form, see Patents Forms, G.
Fee, 108.

(8) Patents Rules, 50-53.
Fee on hearing, 17., by both
parties.

Sect. 18.

(4.) The law officer shall, if required, hear the person making the request (a), and the person so giving notice, and being in the opinion of the law officer entitled to be heard in opposition to the request, and shall determine whether and subject to what conditions, if any, the amendment ought to be allowed (3).

(5.) Where no notice of opposition is given, or the person so giving notice does not appear, the comptroller shall determine whether and subject to what conditions, if any, the amendment ought to be allowed.

(6.) When leave to amend is refused by the comptroller, the person making the request may appeal from his decision to the law officer (B).

(7.) The law officer shall, if required, hear the person making the request and the comptroller, and may make an order determining whether, and subject to what conditions, if any, the amendment ought to be allowed.

(8.) No amendment shall be allowed that would make the specification, as amended, claim an invention substantially larger than or substantially different from the invention claimed by the specification as it stood before amendment.

(9.) Leave to amend shall be conclusive as to the right of the party to make the amendment allowed, except in case of fraud; and the amendment shall in all Courts and for all purposes be deemed to form part of the specification.

(10.) The foregoing provisions of this section do not apply when and so long as any action for infringement or other legal proceeding in relation to a patent is pending (y).

(a) Patents Forms, Form T.
(B) See rules as to appeals.

(7) See as to this, next section.

It was not until the year 1835 that a patentee obtained Sect. 18. the right to amend his specification by disclaimer. Some doubt existed as to the right of an assignee to disclaim, but by the 7 & 8 Vict. c. 69, s. 5, power was given to a patentee who had assigned his patent to disclaim, the benefit of such disclaimer being acquired by the assignee. The present section gives an assignee power to amend the specification directly, inasmuch as a patentee is defined by sect. 43 as "the person for the time being entitled to the benefit of the patent."

66

The right of amendment given by this section is worded somewhat differently to the corresponding power given by the Act of 1835. This last-mentioned Act permitted a patentee to enter a disclaimer of any part of either the title of the invention or of the specification," or to "enter a memorandum of any alteration in the said title or specification not being such disclaimer or such alteration as shall extend the exclusive right granted by the said letters patent."

Hitherto letters

letters
patent

This section is restricted to amendment of the "specifi- No power cation." It does not, therefore, extend to any amend- to amend ment of the actual letters patent. patent could, at common law, be corrected by the Lord themselves. Chancellor, to whom the writ of privy seal for making the patent was directed. Under the present Act patents are sealed by the comptroller (sect. 12), but no power seems to be given to the comptroller to amend errors in letters patent themselves, except in so far as sect. 91 gives him power to correct clerical errors "in or in connexion with an application for a patent," but such section does not appear to extend to the letters patent.

tion may
be amended

before seal

The section applies to an "applicant," and therefore a Specificaspecification may be amended before letters patent are sealed. The provisions of the section are applicable to a complete specification rather than to a provisional specifi- ing. cation, inasmuch as the latter is not published until the acceptance of the former, and the advertisement of a proposed amendment of the provisional specification would therefore, at first sight, appear to be useless. But where the proposed amendment would practically turn the application into an application for a new patent in which another applicant or patentee is interested, the advertisement may give such other applicant or patentee sufficient information to enable him to oppose the amendment, though by sub-sect. 8, the power of amendment possessed by the comptroller is limited so as not to