PATENT is an exclusive right granted by the crown (in letters patent or open,whence the name) to an individual to manufacture and sell a chattel or article of commerce of his own invention. The policy of the present law of patents has latterly been much canvassed, and it has been suggested that, instead of the present monopoly, with the drawback of litigation to which it uniformly gives rise, the use of all inventions should be dedicated to the public at once, and the inventor rewarded by a pension from the state, according to the merits and utility of the invention. The present law allows the inventor to have a monopoly of his invention for 14 years, with a further privilege at the epd of that time, provided he has not been sufficiently remunerated, to have the patent renewed for a further term of 14 yearn That some mode of rewarding the indi vidual whose perseverance and ingenuity have enabled him to discover a new invention should be established is universally admitted, but whether it should be at the expense of that part of the public who are purchasers, and therefore benefited by his discovery, or by the public at large in the shape of a pension, is a matter still undecided. The evils of the present law are that there is a great deal of uncertainty in the mode of ascertain ing what is a new invention. Hence, when a patent has been granted, if it is of such a nature as to lead to competition, infringements are almost matters of course, and the only mode of discovering and checking the infringement is so tedious, costly, and inef fective that inventors generally pass their lives in constant litigation, fighting in detail a succession of imitators who often have nothing to lose by defeat, and therefore entail all the greater burden on the legitimate manufacturer. It has been said that not more than three patents per cent are remunerative. A royal commission has latterly been engaged in inquiries as to the best mode of remunerating inventors, and improving the law in reference to infringements; but it is doubtful how far the subject is capable of being put, on a better footing, so many difficulties being inherent in it. The crown seems always to have enjoyed the prerogative right to grant monopolies, and this had been so greatly perverted.in the time of Elizabeth that the popular clamor led to a statute in the fol
lowing reign having for its object to prevent the crown in future making any grants of that kind which should be prejudicial to the interests of trade. By that act an excep tion was expressly made in favor of new inventions. At first the judges construed grants of monopoly to inventors very strictly; but afterwards it was seen that they were for the benefit of trade, and were dealt with more liberally. An important modification of " the law was introduced by a statute of queen Anne, which required every inventor to, describe in detail the nature of the invention in an instrument called a specification. Another statute of 5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 83 further altered the law by allowing parties who had a difficulty in .separating what was new from what was old in their invention to enter an express disclaimer of that part which was not new. But the most important alteration was made in 1852, by the statute of 15 and 16 Vict. c. 83, which reduced the fees, and otherwise improved the practice attending the obtaining of patents for the United Kingdom. Before stating shortly the substance of this act, it may be observed that there has always been a difficulty in defining what is an invention that is patent able—a difficulty which no act of parliament can get rid of, for it is inherent in the sub ject-matter. It has been held that a patent must be not merely a discovery of a new substance or article cif food, but it must be a combination of processes producing some new result, or an old result by different means. It is of the essence of the patent that it be entirely new; that is, that it should not have been described in a published book, or well known in the business of the world, nor publicly used before. What amounts to a public use is necessarily difficult of definition, but the thing must have been so used that others may have known and used it besides the inventor. The specifica tion must be so drawn as to give a. 'full disclosure of the secret, and describe it so that an intelligent person could from the description make or produce the article itself.