the patentee as such, and of all the circumstances of the case. If
it appears to the court that the patentee has been inadequately
remunerated by his patent, it may extend the term of the patent
to a further term not exceeding seven or, in exceptional cases,
fourteen years, or may order the grant of a new patent for a certain
term, with any restrictions or provisions it may think fit (Act of
1907, § 18).
Patent privileges, like most other rights, can be made the subject of sale. Partial interests can also be carved out of them by means of licences, instruments which empower other persons to exercise the invention, either universally and for the full time of the patent (when they are tantamount to an assignment of the patentee’s entire rights), or for a limited time, or within a limited district. By an exclusive licence is meant one that restrains the patentee from granting other licences to any one else. By means of a licence a patentee may derive benefit from his patent without entering into trade and without running the risks of a partnership.
One of the regulations of the act of 1883 was that a patentee could be compelled by the Board of Trade to grant licences to persons who were able to show that the patent was not being worked in the United Kingdom, or that the reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the invention could not be supplied, or that any person was prevented from working or using to the best advantage an invention of which he was possessed. This regulation, however, remained practically a dead letter, for only three applications were made between the years 1883 and 1897, and these never proceeded to a hearing. After 1897 a few petitions were heard, but even so late as in 1908 there was only one petition and that was withdrawn by agreement between the parties. By § 3 of the act of 1902, the hearing of petitions for a grant of compulsory licences was transferred to the judicial committee of the privy council, but the act of 1907 substituted the High Court as the tribunal in the place of the judicial committee. It also laid down that the reasonable requirements of the public should not be deemed to be satisfied: (a) if by reason of the default of the patentee to manufacture to an adequate extent and supply on reasonable terms, the patented article or any parts thereof necessary for its efficient working or to carry on the patented process to an adequate extent or to grant licences on reasonable terms, any existing trade or industry or the establishment of any new trade or industry in the United Kingdom is unfairly prejudiced, or the demand for the patented article is not reasonably met; or (b) if any trade or industry in the United Kingdom is unfairly prejudiced by the conditions attached by the patentee before or after the passing of the act to the purchase, hire or use of the patented article or to the using or working of the patented process. Clause b is an endeavour to remedy an abuse by which patentees bound down purchasers and licences by all kinds of conditions. Section 38 of the act of 1907 contains also a further remedy, making it unlawful in any contract in relation to the sale or lease of, or licence to use or work, any patented article or process to insert conditions prohibiting or restricting the use of the patent or process from using articles supplied by a third person or requiring him to use other articles not protected by the patent. Such conditions are declared “null and void as being in restraint of trade and contrary to public policy.”
Another new and very important provision of the act of 1907 is that dealing with the revocation of patents worked outside the United Kingdom. It may be stated here that in the year 1908 out of a total number of 16,284 patentees, 2819 were resident in the United States, 2516 in Germany, 822 in France, 334 in Austria-Hungary, 200 in Switzerland, 166 in the Australian Commonwealth, 159 in Belgium, 155 in Canada, 139 in Sweden and 134 in Italy. It had been a common practice to take out licences in the United Kingdom (especially in the dyeing industry) in order to close the British market to all except the patentees and their licensees, the patented articles or processes being worked entirely abroad. Section 27 of the act of 1907 enacted that at any time not less than four years after the date of a patent and not less than one year after the passing of the act, any person might apply to the comptroller for the revocation of a patent on the ground that the patented article or process is manufactured or carried on exclusively or mainly outside the United Kingdom. The comptroller is given power to make an order revoking the patent forthwith or after a reasonable interval, unless the patentee can show satisfactory reasons. The insertion of this provision resulted in the establishment of many factories in the United Kingdom.
Legal Remedies.—A patentee’s remedy for an infringement of his rights is by civil suit, there being no criminal proceedings in such a case. In prosecuting such suit he subjects those rights to a searching examination, for the alleged infringer is at liberty to show that the invention is not new, that the patentee is not the true and first inventor, &c., as well as to prove that the alleged infringement is not really an infringement. But it may here be remarked that a patentee is not bound down (unless he chooses so to be) to the precise mode of carrying the invention into effect described in the specification. If the principle is new, it is not to be expected that he can describe every mode of working it; he will sufficiently secure the principle by giving some illustrations of it; and no person will be permitted to adopt some mode of carrying
the same principle into effect on the ground that such mode has not been described by the patentee. On the other hand, when the principle is not new, a patentee can only secure the particular method which he has invented, and other persons may safely use other methods of effecting the same object. Instances of this occur every day; and it is well known that scores of patents have been taken out for screw-propellers, steam-hammers, water-meters, &c., each of which is limited to the particular construction described, and cannot be extended further. Again, where the invention patented consists of a combination of parts, some old and some new, the whole constituting a new machine or a new process, it is not open to the world to copy the new part and reject the rest. A man is not permitted to allege that the patent is for a combination, and that, the identical combination not having been used, there has been no infringement. If he has borrowed the substance of the invention, it will be held that he has infringed the patent. At common law a person who, alleging that he has a patent, threatens his rivals in trade, is liable to an action for damages, but the plaintiff cannot succeed without showing that the threats were made maliciously. The Patents Act 1883 provided another remedy what is known as “the threats action.” This has been incorporated in the act of 1907, § 36. The statute makes the good faith of the patentee threatening legal proceedings no answer to an action brought against him by any person aggrieved by his threats if the acts complained of are not in fact an infringement of the patent, and if the patentee fails with due diligence to commence and prosecute an action for infringement.
Extent and Construction.—The patent when sealed is to have effect in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man. The act of 1907, unlike the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852, does not extend the monopoly to the Channel Islands.
The patent business of the United Kingdom is transacted at the Patent Office in London under the superintendence of the comptroller, an officer appointed by the Board of Trade, under whose direction he performs his duties. At this office is kept a register of all patents issued, of assignments of patents, licences granted under them, &c. An illustrated journal of patent inventions is published at the same office, where printed copies of all specifications can also be obtained. The fees payable to government on patents were considerably reduced by an order of the Board of Trade which came into operation on the 1st of October 1892, and may now be paid by convenient annual instalments. The following are the present fees: before the expiration of the 4th year from the date of the patent, £5 instead of £10; of the 5th year, £6 instead of £10; of the 6th year, £7 instead of £10; of the 7th year, £8 instead of £10; of the 8th year, £9 instead of £15; of the 10th year, £11 instead of £20; of the 11th year, £12 instead of £20; of the 12th year, £13 instead of £20; and of the 13th year, £14 instead of £20. The preliminary fees amounting to £4 were left untouched by the order but under the Patent Rates of 1905 an additional fee of £1 is payable on the sealing of the patent. The entire cost of a patent is now reduced from £154 to £100.
A new Patent Office was constructed on the site of the old buildings, the frontage extending from Southampton Buildings into Staple Inn. The number of applications for patents, which sprang from 5993 in 1883 to 17,110 in 1884, culminated in a total of 30,952 for the year 1892, since which date a steady decline set in down to 1900, when the number was 23,924. But the numbers went up again, reaching 30,030 in 1906, but only 28,598 in 1908. The number of patents sealed on application for a given year shows less variation, the minimum being 8775 for 1885 against 16,060 in 1907. The proportion of seals to applications varies from about 46 to 50%. The receipts from patent fees in 1908 were £262,890, against a total expenditure of £179,531.
The official publications of the Patent Office deserve some notice, as, in the absence of official investigation into novelty, the onus of search rests with the applicant or his agent. The procedure has been greatly simplified by the publication, on a uniform system and at a low rate (1s. per volume), of illustrated abridgments of specifications. From 1877 practically to date the searcher obtains a chronological digest of all specifications falling within a given class. To these classes there is a reference index, known as the “abridgment class and index key,” which at once directs the searcher to his proper class and index heading.
Patent Agents.—Patents are frequently obtained through the intervention of persons termed patent agents, who devote themselves to this branch of business. Their position is now regulated by statute. By the Patents Act 1888, it was provided that no person should, after July 1, 1889, be entitled to describe himself (and whoever does so knowingly incurs liability to a maximum penalty of £20) as a patent agent whether by advertisement, description of his place of business or otherwise, without being registered as such in pursuance of the act. But the act preserves the right to registration of every person who, to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade, shows that he had been bona fide practising as a patent agent before it passed. The Board of Trade is empowered by this statute to make from time to time general rules for the purpose of carrying out its provisions, and by rules issued in 1889, and reissued in 1891, the Board of Trade delegated to the Institute of Patent Agents (which obtained a royal charter in
