Ch.X.Sec.irO Patents. 189 of State for the Home Department, where they are lodged. A few days after, the answer to the petition may commonly be had, containing a reference of it to the attorney or solicitor- general, which must be taken to either of their chambers for the report thereon ; and in a few days afterwards the clerk will deliver it out. The report is then to be taken to the Secretary of State's office for the King's warrant, and the clerk will in- form the person leaving it when it may be called for. The warrant is directed to the attorney or solicitor-general, and is to be taken to their patent office for the bill. When the bill is prepared, it is taken to the Secretary of State's office, for the King's sign manual to the bill. As soon as this is obtained, it is carried to the signet office to be passed there, when the clerk prepai'es a warrant for the Lord Keeper of the privy seal, whereupon the clerk of the privy seal prepares his warrant to the Lord Chancellor. This warrant is then to be taken to the Lord Chancellor's patent office, where the patent itself is pre- pared and will be delivered out as soon as it is sealed. The specification should then be prepared, acknowledged, and lodged at the enrollment office, to have the usual certificate of the enrollment indorsed on it ; this is commonly done in about a week or fortnight afterwards, and then the patent is in every respect complete. For Ireland and Scotland there must be distinct patents {a). With respect to a caveat^ Mr. Davies in his work on this subject makes the following useful remarks : " It now only remains that we should say a few words upon the nature and effect of a caveat, which during our practice we have fre- quently found to be very much misunderstood. It has been thought by many inventors, that upon entering a caveat they secured the right to themselves of obtaining a patent, notwith- standing the invention might be brought into use pi'ior to their having done so ; in short, that it was a kind of minor patent, giving them every privilege for one year which the patent itself would do for fourteen, or that it would operate as a proof of their being the first and true inventors, and that upon their afterwards obtaining a patent, they would be able to maintain it against any person, who, in the mean time, might have made (a) See Hands, 12, &c. use
