PATENT. This term is now ordinarily applied to exclusive rights of inauutacture granted by royal letters patent under the provisions of the Statute of Monopolies, 21 Jao. I. c. 3, and subsequent statutes. Prior to the Statute of Monopolies it bad become not unusual for our Tudor sovereigns to grant by their letters-patent to their favourites and to purchasers, exclusive rights of trading, in derogation of the old common law ; and this statute was passed to restrain such abuses, and to settle and determine the circumstances under which encouragement and protection should be afforded to inventors. While therefore the statute commences with a declaration of the illegality of monopolies, it proceeds to except therefrom "all letters patent for the term of fourteen years or under, by which the privilege of sole working or makiug any new manufactures within this realm, which others at the time of granting the letters-patent shall not use, ahall be granted to the true and first inventor thereof ; so as they be not contrary to law, nor mischievous to the state, nor to the hurt of trade, nor generally inconvenient ; " and within the terms of this exception all valid patents may still be ranged. The grant of a patent is not a thing which the subject can claim as a matter of right ; it is the free gift of the crown. The form of the grant is by letters-patent under the great seal, which being the deed of the crown are considered as of public record.
Before applying for a patent for an invention, two considerations are necessary ; first, what is entitled to a patent ; and next, whether the invention has the requisite conditions.
In the first place, the machine, operation, or substance produced, for which a patent is solicited, must be new to public use, either the original invention of the patentee, or imported by him and first made public here. A patent may be obtained for England, Ireland, or Scotland, although the subject of it may have been publicly known and in use in either or in both of the other two countries.
In the second place, the subject of the invention must be useful to the public, something applicable to the production of a vendible article, this being the construction put upon the words "new manu facture" in the statute of James 1. The discovery of a philosophical principle is not considered entitled to such protection : such principle must be applied, and the manner of such application is a fit subject for a patent.
Inventions entitled to patent may be briefly enumerated ns follows : L "A new combination of mechanical parts, whereby a new machine is produced, although each of the parts separately be old and well known.
2. " An improvement on any machine whereby such machine is rendered capable of performing better or more beneficially.
3. " When the vendible substance is the thing produced either by chemical or other processes, such as medicines or fabrics.
4. " Where an old substance is improved by some new working, the means of producing the improvement is iii most eases patentable." If the inventor think that the machine, operation, or substance pro duced comes under any of these enumerations, he may lodge with the Commissioners of Patents for Inventions a petition to the crown for a patent, supported by a declaration in lieu of an oath, that he is the true and first inventor of the manufacture sought to be patented, and that the invention is not in use by any other person to the best of his knowledge and belief. With this petition and declaration must also be lodged an instrument called "the provisional specification," the object of which is to describe the nature of the invention. The applicant is then referred by the commissioners to one of the law officers of the crown, who is at liberty to call any scientific or other person to his aid; and if the law officer shall be satisfied that the pro visional specification describes the nature of the invention, and certifies his allowance of the same, the invention may, during six months from the date of the application, be used and published without prejudice to any letters-patent to be afterwards granted; or the applicant may file with the petition and declaration a "complete" in lieu of a " provisional " specification, inserting in the declaration an additional statement, that the instrument particularly describes and ascertains the nature of the invention, and in what manner time same is to ho performed; and in this case the applicant has, during the term of six months, the like powers and privileges as under letters-patent during term the invention may be used and published, without prejudice to the subsequent grant of lettera-patent.