A sealed Royal Letters Patent alone enables an inventor to obtain absolute protection for fourteen years, and allows of legal action being taken against infringers, annual renewal fees being payable from the end of the fourth year.
The complete specification must be begun upon Patent Form No. 3 (stamp, £3), and con tinued on foolscap paper. An unstamped dupli cate copy is also required. The specification should contain a full and detailed description of the invention, of such a nature that the in vention could be carried into practical effect by a competent workman. Drawings are also required where a mere description would fail to make everything absolutely clear. Instruc tions to applicants for patents (supplied free) give clear directions not only for drawings but also for the mode of applications, provisional and complete. The complete specification, together with its claims, is a most important document. The drafting of claims is a task that should be done by a fully qualified and registered patent agent, because when a specification comes to be construed in a court of law, the wording of the claims is subjected to a searching scrutiny, and if there is any flaw the patentee will generally fail to support his monopoly. Further than this,
the claims should always be drafted in the first instance as wide as is reasonably possible, because there will then be an opportunity of reconsidering them in the light of the fuller knowledge of prior patents disclosed by the Patent Office search.
The total amount of Government stamp duty for a British patent is £1 on provisional application, £3 on completing same ; or £4 on complete application in the first instance. A further fee of £1 is payable in order to obtain the issue of a patent on an accepted applica tion. Before the end of the fourth year, dating from the first application, £5 becomes due in respect of the fifth year ; before the end of the fifth year £6 in respect to the sixth year, and so on, increasing £r each year during the period (fourteen years) the patent may be kept in force. The period is extended only in very special circumstances.