August 31.
Wrre the full entry into operation of the Patents and Designs Act of 1907, announced by our telegram of Saturday's issue, British trade, -no less than the freedom of British invention, undergoes one of the most important reforms that have been known for many years. The bulk of the Act came into force on January 1; but certain points of procedure were postponed pending the issue of rules from the Board of Trade. Now, however, the old order is completely swept away, for the new Act includes the repeal of all Patent Acts which were in existence down to the end of 1907, and therewith British industry finds itself set free from certain disabilities the value of which may be computed from the estimate that £25,000,000 of German capital is to be invested in England for the manufacture of articles previously made abroad. The obvious inference to be drawn, that the Act is designed against certain unfair uses to which the older practice had been put by foreign manufacturers to the detriment of British, has led not unnaturally to some humorous taunts that a free Trade Government should have lent itself to legislation of a purely Protectionist nature. Happily a tendency has wu up on both sides of the louse to treat Board of Trade! proposals as far as possible on non-party lines: and—while Unionists had almost as much to say in approval of Mr. Lloyd George's measure as had Liberals, the fow criticisms advanced by the Opposition were met in the same friendly spirit as that in which they were made. The nature of the evil to be overcome finds some expression in the common belief that invention is the most expensive form of speculation. Theortically the patent laws of Great Britain were made for the protection and encouragement of native talent and industry. In actual practice they have produced exactly the contrary result, to the extent, indeed, if we may believe Mr. Lloyd George, of the destraction of many British industries. More than this, an appeal to the law-courts might be attended by so much expense, that few manufacturers, very few inventors, would care to risk an action in which an extremely doubtful victory would be scarcely less ramous than defeat.
Setting aside those portions of the Act which, as being framed to facilitate the operation of patenting an invention and to lessen its cost, are chiefly technical in character, the reformations aimed at by Mr. Lloyd George fall broadly into three divisions. Hitherto it has not been required by British law that a patent must actually be worked in the United Kingdom in order to retain its efficiency. In no other country is such liberty enjoyed, German practice demanding that the thing patented must be manufactured in Germany within three years of the issue of the patent; French practice fixing the period at two; while the United States, though not provided with any specific ruling on the point, is sufficiently protected by her enormous tariff. The unfairness of the British law is shown by its ability to be used not to encourage, but to block native industry. Of 14,700 patents granted in the year 1906, 6,500 were taken out by foreigners, with, in a large number of cases, the express intention of preventing: certain industries from being pursued inthe United Kingdom. This grievance was aggravated by the custom adopted by German man-factorers (particularly in the region of chemical products) of conjoining with one bond side patent a number of subsidiary" patents, sometimes as yet argoly imaginative and in referring to inventions which were
all cases intentionally vague and obscure. When a British chemist appeared in the field with a new discovery he was almost certain to be checkmated by one or other of these really fictitious patents. He would be pursued, if nec, by the interested foreign syndicate from the Court of first instance to the Appeal Court; thence to the House of Lords; and even if successful in all three, he would probably be ruined and his invontion with him. The third great] abuse which had crept in under old laws lay in the conditions of employment attached by patentees to their inventions; under which a manufacturer bound himself to adopt no other form of machinery for twenty years from the date at which he had installed a particular kind of plant. To take an illustration from the boot and shoe industry as one that has conspicuously suffered from this oppression. At the time when 'American patents for turning out boots and shoes by machinery were first coming into the market, British manufacturers were driven, as a choice between life and death, to adopt the invention. The con dition of twenty years' exclusive use which accompanied the sale of each machine, not merely exposed the purchaser to the risk of having to work, within a few years, with obsolete machinery, but gave to the patentee a practical monopoly, which was to last for six years longer than the period of royalties provided by his patent.
The barriers now raised against the abuses we have briefly outlined are so simple that, but for the extreme intricacy of Patent Law, it must appear surprising that the have never been contrived before. Honceforward any person may apply to the Comptroller (who thus for the first time receives judicial powers) for revocation of a patent which is not under four years old, on the ground that the patented article or process is manufactured or carried on exclusively or mainly (the italics are ours) outside the United Kingdom. It is for protection against this clause that Germans and Americans are opening new factories in England, with, may be hoped, beneficial possibilities for native labour. Ili the second place the Registrar may, at discretion, require samples of an; new invention to be deposited with him; in order to defeat the practice of taking out fictitious, or, it might better be said, prophetic patents. Thirdly, all contracts binding par-chasers to the exclusive use of one patent may be declared null and void (within certain limitations) on three months' notice of termination and this provision is to be metro spective in action, so that no manu-factorer bound by the old practice may safter in comparison with yet unfettered rivals. As a last and very grateful relief, it is enacted that the Comptroller of Patents will henceforward decide cases that were previously dealt with by the High Court, while the latter will decide those which used to be taken by the Privy Council; a change which, if it add to the Comptroller's labours, will much lighten and cheapen those of the patentee litigant. In general the Act appears to be chiefly remarkable for its simplicity coupled with elasticity, two features which should protect it from the common " coach and four" treatment that defeats so much good intention on the part of legislators. The accusation that the Act is, in reality, a Protectionist measure appears to be met by the answer that it imposes no penalizing import duty, but merely secures to the country some recom for its grant of patent rights. In any case-+he charge would not appear to have occasioned much misgiving to Free Traders in Parliament, and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.