The English Law Courts. end that nothing should pass the great seal, that is so highly esteemed and accounted of in law, that was against law or inconvenient, or that anything should pass from the King any ways, which he intended not, by undue and surreptitious means." This reasoning obviously lost its force however when letters patent came to be granted at the peril of the grantee, and when after the introduction of the practice of enrolling a specification, the patentee was judged upon his own deed; but the number of offices was not reduced till the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852, and these offices seem largely to have ex isted for the purpose of extracting fees from the patentee at various stages. Under that statute they were reduced to the office of the Commissioners of Patents, in which all pro ceedings took place. When the Patent Act, 1883, which invests the Patent Office with some of the functions of a legal tribunal, passed into law, a joint committee was ap pointed by the Board of Trade and the Treas ury to advise as to the reconstitution of the office of the Commissioner of Patents and as to the formation of a properly qualified staff of examiners. The recommendations of the committee having been generally approved, the requisite staff was appointed and the Pa tent Office was opened to the public at ten A. M., on Jan. 1, 1884. There were numerous competitors for the honor of being the first applicant under the new act. Number one was eventually ob tained by a Scotchman who came from Glas gow, and arrived at the Patent Office over night. The whole office is under the con trol of the Comptroller General of Patents (Sir Henry Reader Lack), subject to the Board of Trade, and there is a large staff of examiners who perform the examining func tions of the office. In addition to the printed specifications of British and foreign patents, the Patent Office Library contains the best collection of works relating to the applied sciences at present accessible to the general public, and is spe
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cially rich in foreign technical and periodical literature. The practical working of the Patent Office and the points at which it acts as a Court of Law will be best illustrated by a brief outline of the procedure to obtain a patent. An ap plication for a patent must be made in the form prescribed by the act of 1883, and must be left at or sent by post to the Patent Office. This application must contain a declaration that the applicant is in possession of an invention whereof he, or, in the case of a joint application, one or more of the appli cants, is the true and first inventor, and must be accompanied by cither a provisional or a complete specification. The provisional spec ification describes "the nature of the inven tion," and must be accompanied by drawings if required. The complete specification must "particularly describe and ascertain the na ture of the invention, and in what manner it is to be performed," and must also, if required, be accompanied by drawings. A specifica tion, whether provisional or complete, must commence with the title of the invention, and in the case of a complete specification must end with a distinct statement of the invention claimed. The same drawings may accom pany both specifications. The Comptroller refers every application to an examiner, whose duty it is to ascertain and report whether the nature of the invention has been fairly described and the application, specifi cation and drawings, if any, have been pre pared in the prescribed manner, and the title sufficiently indicates the subject-matter of the invention. If the examiner reports ad versely to the applicant on any one of these points the Comptroller may refuse to accept the application, or require the application, specification or drawings to be amended be fore proceeding further, and in the latter case the application, if the Comptroller so directs, may bear date as from the time when his re quirement was complied with. An applicant may appeal from the Comptroller, refusing to accept an application or requiring an
