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comprised in that area which is bounded by Hampstead on the north, Chelsea on the South, Finsbury on the east, and Hammersmith on the West, there is much valuable information respecting the Royal Family and Household, Public Departments, and so forth.

Herbert Fry's Royal Guide to the London Charities. Edited by JOHN LANE (37th Annual Edition). London: Chatto & Windus.—This is a useful Annual, and should be in the hands of all persons who have money to give or leave to charities. The objects of the work are two-fold-first, to point out to the suffering the Charities or Institutions to which it will be best for them to apply, in the hope of getting the relief their need requires; and secondly, to help those benevolent people who have money to give but are in doubt where to give it. The work gives in alphabetical order, a complete list of the London Charities, with the date of their foundation, addresses, annual income, and other particulars. The editor's preface is both useful and interesting.

Received too late for notice in this issue:-Les Territoires Africains, By E. Rouard de Card; Thwaites' Students' Constitutional Law and Legal History; Whitaker's Almanack, 1901; Edalzi's Railway Law for the Man in the Train.

The following Reviews have been held over owing to want of space :-Raikes Maritime Codes of Italy; Minton-Senhouse's Case Law of Workmen's Compensation; Lawyers and their Clients; Duckworth's Trader's Guide to the Law of Sale of Goods; Every Man's Own Lawyer; Ruegg's Employer's Liability Act; Vol. I. The English Reports; Index to the Law Times Reports; Beverley Town Documents; Selden Society; Duckworth's General and Particular Average; Charter Parties and Bills of Lading.

Other publications received:- The Monthly Review; Bentham and the Codifers, By Charles N. Gregory (Virginia State Bar Association); Macpherson's British Enactments in Native States (Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta); Subject List of Works on the Laws of Industrial Property (Patent Office Library); Druce's Agricultural Holdings Act; Bulletin, No. 54 of the New York State Library.

The Law Magazine and Review receives or exchanges with the following amongst other publications :-Review of Reviews, Juridical Review, Public Opinion, Law Times, Law Journal, Justice of the Peace, Law Quarterly Review, Irish Law Times, Australian Law Times, Speaker, Accountants' Journal, North American Review, Canada Law Journal, Canada Law Times, Chicago Legal News, American Law Review, American Law Register, Harvard Law Review, Case and Comment, Green Bag, Virginia Law Register, American Lawyer, Albany Law Journal, Madras Law Journal, Calcutta Weekly Notes, Law Notes, Queensland Law Journal, Law Students' Journal, Westminster Review, Bombay Law Reporter, Medico-Legal Journal, Indian Review, Kathiawar Law Reports, The Lawyer (India), Cape Law Journal, Yale Law Journal, New Jersey Law Journal.

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THE

LAW MAGAZINE AND REVIEW.

No. CCCXX.-MAY, 1901.

I. THE WORKING OF THE PATENT ACTS.

THE

HE Committee on Patent Law appointed by the Board of Trade was presided over by the Right Hon. Sir Edward Fry, and consisted of the Master of the Rolls (Lord Alverstone), the Solicitor General (Sir E. Carson, K.C., M.P.), Sir Wm. Houldsworth, Bart., M.P., F. J. S. Hopwood, C.B., C.M.G.' (Board of Trade), S. E. Spring Rice, C.B. (Treasury), Fletcher Moulton, K.C., M.P., Colonel Thomas W. Harding, Edward Carpmael, Herbert Hughes, and Arthur Paget (Secretary.)

These names show that the Board of Trade have done all in their power to secure an efficient Committee. Sir Richard Webster, to use the name by which Lord Alverstone is more familiarly known, and Mr. Fletcher Moulton have had more experience in the conduct of patent cases than any other lawyers since the patent laws have been in existence so that the claims of the Bar would not be likely to be lightly overlooked. The Board of Trade were represented by Mr. Hopwood, who has made a special study of the patent laws in this country and visited the United States' Patent Office at Washington, and the Canadian Patent Office at Ottawa. The notes of this visit in 1898 are a valuable contribution to the materials before the Committee and suggest that the Board of Trade would do well to ask Mr. Hopwood to report on the working of

the German Patent Offices before any further legislation is undertaken. Mr. S. E. Spring Rice, in representing the Treasury, has certainly taken care, as he would be expected to do, that no recommendations likely to result in a diminution in the revenue payable to the Treasury should be made by the Committee. Mr. Edward Carpmael was chosen from among the Patent Agents and he as well as the remaining members of the Committee have shown a thorough knowledge of the subjects which have been selected for investigation. The Committee were fortunate in securing the services of Mr. Mr. Arthur Paget as Secretary and apart from the special acknowledgment in the report, the appendices, correspondence and index shew that he must have been a great help to the Committee.

This excellent Committee was presided over by a most experienced lawyer whose physical and intellectual vigour made it difficult for those who appeared before him to understand his reason for retiring from the Court of Appeal in the middle of a useful and active career. For inquiries of this nature and others of a more important character, the country should be thankful to have a man of such distinguished ability held in reserve.

It is to be regretted that the Solicitor General, through indisposition, has not signed the report and that no note of his views is appended. If any such note had appeared, I think one is entitled to assume from the questions put by him to the witnesses that it would have shewn a disagreement with the main conclusions at which the Committee arrived.

The Board of Trade defined the duties of the Committee by confining the scope of the enquiry to three heads, the first dealing with a partial examination as to the novelty of inventions, although any general system of examinations as to novelty was barred; the second having reference to

the amendment of the law relating to the grant of compulsory licences, and the third to the extension of time for application by foreign inventors under the International Convention.

It will be seen seen that, although the scope of the enquiry was thus limited, the consideration of important questions as to the administration of the patent laws arose under the first two heads. From the constitution of the Committee it is apparent that within its own body a vast amount of knowledge was in the possession of the Committee without extraneous evidence, but this was supplemented by the evidence of twenty representative witnesses who appeared before the Committee, so that whatever the result of the enquiry and whatever opinions may be contained in the report it cannot be said that the Committee had not sufficient evidence and other material before it upon which to come to a right decision.

PARTIAL EXAMINATION AS TO NOVELTY.

In order that it may not be said that the above heading is an unfair way of representing the first question considered by the Committee, I will quote the exact wording of the minute of the 24th day of May, 1900 :

While Her Majesty's Government do not think it desirable and do not propose to establish any general system of examination as to the novelty of inventions in respect of which applications for Letters Patent are made, and do not require any inquiry into any such system of examination, the Committee hereinbefore appointed is to inquire into the working of the Patents Acts with reference to the following questions :

(1) Whether any, and, if so, what additional powers should be given to the Patent Office to

(a) control,

(b) impose conditions on, or

(c) otherwise limit

the issue of Letters Patent in respect of inventions which are obviously old, or which the information recorded in the office shows to have been previously protected by Letters Patent in this country.

In order to arrive at their decision under this head the Committee requested the officers of the Patent Office to

make an examination of all the complete specifications accepted during the first week in June in each of the three years 1897, 1898, and 1899, and to carry back these examinations to the year 1877. The result of this enquiry showed that of the total number of specifications examined :—

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100'00

The Committee considering the small number of patents which were "obviously old" do not recommend any examination on this head as distinguished from those which have previously been protected by Letters Patent. On the other hand the Committee were greatly impressed by the fact that 42 per cent. of the specifications appeared to be anticipated either in whole or in part. It would be well to bear in mind. in the consideration of this question what may be alleged against the novelty of an invention for which Letters Patent have been granted. Firstly, the novelty of an invention will be defeated if it be shown that it was in public use within the United Kingdom at any time prior to the date of the Letters Patent granted in respect of it. Secondly, by a prior publication in a book or specification published in this country. The Committee do not propose, as indeed they could not, considering the scope of their inquiry, to ceal with prior user or prior publication in books, and they have not recommended that any examination as to anticipation should be made by a search in the current literature available for such purposes. But they say that the grant of invalid Letters Patent is a serious evil, inasmuch as it tends to the restraint of trade and to the embarrassment of honest traders and inventors, and that the result of the search mentioned above by the Patent Office examiners is a cogent argument in favour of some enquiry as to

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