ENGLISH PATENTS Formerly the reigning prince considered himself entitled, as part of his prerogative, to grant privileges of the nature of monopolies to any one who had gained his favour. These grants became so numerous that they were oppressive and unjust to various classes of the commonwealth; and hence, in the reign of James I., a statute was wrung from that king which declared all monopolies that were grievous and inconvenient to the subjects of the realm to be void. (See LETTERS PATENT; MONOPOLY.) There was, however, a special exception from that enactment of all letters patent and grants of privileges of the "sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures within the realm to the true and first inventor and inventors of such manufactures which others at the time of making such letters patents and grants shall not use, so as also they be not contrary to the law nor mischievous to the State by raising of the prices of commodities at home or hurt of trade or generally inconvenient." Upon these words hangs the whole law of letters patent for inventions. Many statutes were afterwards passed, but these were all repealed by the Patent Act of 1883 (46 and 47 Vict., c. 57) which modified the law in several particulars. There were subsequently several Amending Acts, which with certain savings were repealed by a Consolidating Act, the Patents and Designs Act 1907, which also introduced new provisions into English patent law. It was slightly amended in 1914 (apart from War legislation) and has been sub stantially amended by the Patents and Designs Act 1919. A ther amendment has been made by the Patents and Designs (Con vention) Act, 1928.
The principal classes of patentable inventions seem to be these: (I) new contrivances applied to new ends, (2) new contrivances applied to old ends, (3) new combinations of old parts, whether relating to material objects or processes, (4) new methods of applying a well-known object. In the case of inventions relating to substances prepared or produced by chemical processes or intended for food or medicine a claim cannot be made for the substance itself, except when prepared or produced by the special methods or processes of manufacture described and claimed or by their obvious chemical equivalents (Act of 1919 s. II).
With regard to a patent for the new application of a well known object it may be remarked that there must be some dis play of ingenuity, some amount of invention, in making the appli cation, otherwise the patent will be invalid. For example, a fish plate, used before the introduction of railways to connect wooden beams, could not be patented to connect the rails of a railway (Harwood v. Great Northern Railway Co., 186o-65, II H.L.C. 654) nor can a spring long used in the rear of a carriage be pat ented for use in the front (Morgan v. Windover, 1890, 7 R.P.C. 130. But a small amount of invention will suffice, so long as the improvement is manifest, either as saving time or labour or having other utility (Rickmann v. Thierry, 1896, 14 R.P.C. io5: Patent
Exploitation Ltd. v. Siemens and Co., 1904, 21 R.P.C. 549: Taste V. Coombes, 1923, 41 R.P.C. 88).
Whatever be the nature of the invention, it must possess the incidents of utility and novelty, otherwise any patent obtained in respect of it will be invalid. The degree of utility need not, how ever, be great. Commercial success is not necessary but may be an important item in considering whether there was invention. The affording of a new and useful choice of means for effecting a known object is sufficient. As to novelty, if it can be shown that other persons have used or published the invention before the date of the patent, it will fall to the ground, although the patentee was an independent inventor deriving his ideas from no one else. Thus, where the patent sued on was for a lock, it was proved that a similar lock had been in use on a gate adjoining a public road for 16 years prior to the patent, which was accordingly invali dated (Carpenter v. Smith, 1842, I. Web. P.C. 540). It is some times a subject of enquiry whether an invention has so been pre viously used as to have been publicly used in the sense attached by the courts to this phrase. The mere use of an apparatus in a car driven along a public way, without opportunity for any one to see it, was held not to be a public user, and the use in question being a mere casual accidental use in the course of a different investigation was held not to be an anticipation (Boyce v. Morris Motors Ltd., 44 R.P.C. 105). But whereas "user" in public is sufficient prior publication to invalidate a subsequent patent for the invention so used, publication in books, etc., will not be a bar to novelty unless its effect is to make the invention actually a part of public knowledge; and in dealing with alleged anticipa tions by specifications of patents for inventions that have never come into general use it has been said that a patent will not be invalidated unless a person of ordinary knowledge of the subject, on having the alleged anticipation brought under his notice, would at once perceive, understand, and be able practically to apply the invention without making experiments or seeking for further information. But while this is the text to be applied in consider ing whether a specification is sufficient in respect of working directions, an invention may be sufficiently published if the docu ment alleged to anticipate is sufficient to convey to men of science and employers of labour information which will enable them with out any exercise of inventive ingenuity to understand the inven tion and to give a workman the specific directions necessary to carry it out (King, Brown & Co. v. Anglo-American Brush Co., 1892, A.C. 367, p. 378, Savage v. Harris, 1896, 13 R.P.C. 364, at p. 368). The inventor himself, by the use of his invention even in secret, with a view to profit, may, it would seem, invalidate the patent. Thus, if he manufactures an article by some new process, keeping the process an entire secret, but selling the produce, he cannot probably afterwards obtain a patent in respect of it. If he were allowed to do this, he might in many cases easily obtain a monopoly in his invention for a much longer period than that allowed by law (Morgan v. Seaward, 1837, I. Web, P.C. 192). The sale of the article may, of course, involve the publica tion of the invention. The rule that an inventor's use of the invention invalidates a subsequent patent does not, however, apply to cases where the use was only by way of experiment with a view to improve or test the invention (Elias v. Grovesend Tin plate Co., 189o, 7 R.P.C. 466).