PATENT, an exclusive right granted by a government (in letters patent or open, whence the name) to any person or persons to manufacture and sell a chattel or article of commerce of his own invention. A patent obtained in Eng land extends to 14 years, and several of the colonies have machinery for granting patents for a like period. In France the term is 5, 10, or 15 years at the option of the applicant; in Prussia for 15 years; i in Russia for 3, 5, or 15 years; in Spain for 5, 10, or 20 years; in Belgium for 20 years; in Holland there are no patent laws; in Austria not more than 15 years; in Hungary 15 years. In the United States the person applying for a patent may present a petition, specification, oath, and filing fee, with a drawing if the nature of the case admits of it. Sec. 4884 "Revised Statutes of the United States" reads: "Every patent shall con tain a short title or description of the invention or discovery, correctly indi cating its nature and design, and a grant to the patentee, his heirs, or assigns, for the term of 17 years of the exclusive right to make, use and vend the inven tion or discovery throughout the United States and the Territories thereof." Design patents are granted for periods of three years and six months, seven years, or 14 years, at discretion of the appli cant. Patents are extended only by special congressional legislation. The filing of a caveat power to applying for a patent entitleF the inventor to notice of an interfering application filed during the life of the caveat (one year), during which he may perfect his invention. The alleged inventions set forth in caveats are transferable. Special facilities are given American inventors for securing patents in foreign countries, by a pro vision for keeping an application in the secret archives of the patent office for six months, to enable the inventor to ar range foreign patents.
Patentable Inventions.—By the statute of 1870 it was enacted that an invention to be patentable, must possess, among other qualifications, that of newness. He who produces an old result by a new mode or process is entitled to a patent for that mode or process; but he cannot have a patent for a result merely without using some new mode or process to pro duce it. A man is entitled to all the benefits of the article which he has in vented and patented. Another who hap pens to discover an additional use to which the invention may be applied does not, by that discovery and application create a patentable novelty. When there
is an original principle of operation, a different result in kind, or a new com bination, there exists a patentable nov elty. When either the manufacture pro duced or the manner of producing an old one is new, there is the novelty contem plated by the patent laws. The safest guide to accuracy in making the distinc tion between form and principle has been adjudged to be to ascertain what is the result to be secured by the discovery. Whatever is essential to that object, in dependent of the mere form and propor tions of the thing used for the purpose, may generally, if not universally, be considered as the principle of the inven tion. As a cumulative definition, it may be said that novelty consists in producing a new substance, or an old one in a new way, by new machinery, or by a new combination of the parts of an old ma chine, operating in a peculiar, better, cheaper or quicker method, or a new mechanical employment of principles already known. No person otherwise entitled thereto is debarred from receiv ing a patent for his invention or dis covery by reason of its having been first patented or caused to be patented by the inventor or his legal representatives or assigns in a foreign country, unless the application for said foreign patent was filed more than seven months prior to the filing of the application in this country.
Applications.—Applications for a pat ent must be made in writing to the Com missioner of Patents. The applicant must also file in the Patent Office a writ ten description of the same, and of the manner and process of making, con structing, compounding, and using it in such full, clear, concise and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it appertains or with which it is most nearly connected, to make, construct, compound, and use the same; and in case of a machine he must explain the principle thereof and the best mode in which he has contem plated applying that principle, so as to distinguish it from other inventions, and particularly point out and distinctly claim the part, improvement or combina tion which he claims as his invention or discovery. The specification and claim must be signed by the inventor and at tested by two witnesses.