Arts' Evid. II. 158-165. Ib. 170. House that the work is done not on the premises of the manufacturer, but at the homes of the families employed. The manufacturer appoints a day, when his lace makers meet him at an inn; he buys the lace they have made, gives them new patterns and parchment to work on, and does not see them again until his next journey. This practice of course gives great facility to the operations of a number of persons of either sex, who go about the country searching for new patterns, which they will buy whenever they can, for the purpose of selling again. So that it not unfrequently happens that a manufacturer has his own pattern offered him for sale. Mr. Millward, a lace manufacturer of Olney, stated in evidence before the Arts' Committee, that in the preceding July he had four or five new patterns nicely drawn on parchment, and given out at Stony Stratford. Except one piece, he lost the whole, patterns, parchment, and lace makers. In another case, a few days before his examination, a woman brought him a piece of blonde, which not being his own he declined buying. As an inducement, she told him it was a new pattern, and that but one bit of it had been sold. It seems, in fact, that most of the lace makers sell the patterns intrusted to them whenever they think they can profit by it. Mr. Millward adds, that not more than one pattern in ten suits the general taste, and that is generally the one which becomes common to the whole trade. It is not therefore surprising that while there are said to be at least a hundred thousand persons employed in lace making in the midland counties, even in its depressed state, there are only two or three designers of patterns. Evidence of the depressing effects of piracy in matters decoration. of decoration, such as paper-hanging and the like, will be found in the examination of Mr. Cockerell, which has been already referred to; and also in that of Mr. 497, et seq. George Morant, the eminent decorator, of New Bond Evid. II. street. The former gentleman says, also, with reference Floor-cloth. to floor-cloth— "It was but yesterday that I had occasion to see an eminent floorcloth manufacturer, who stated to me that his designs were copied. within a few weeks after he issued them, by a cheap house in Bristol. These gentlemen," adds Mr. Cockerell, "express their obligation, but they say, 'we cannot continue to employ you, because we have no protection for the designs after they are made.'" Evid. II. 1466. Letters patent for inventions. The last species of copyright which I shall notice as affecting the Plastic Arts in some one or other of their mechanical branches, is that which is afforded by means of LETTERS PATENT FOR INVENTIONS. These have, at present, their legal origin, as is well known, in a saving clause of the famous Act against monopolies, of the 21 James I. c. 3, which provides that the declaration therein before mentioned "Shall not extend to any letters patent or grants of privilege for the term of fourteen years or under, hereafter to be made of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufacture within this realm, to the true and first inventor or inventors of such manufactures, which others at the time of making such letters patent and grants shall not use; so also they be not contrary to the law, nor mischievous to the state, by raising prices of commodities at home, or hurt of trade, or generally inconvenient. The said fourteen years to be accounted from the date of the first letters patent or grant of such privilege, hereafter to be made, but that the same shall be of such force, or they should be, if this Act had never been made, and of none other." This, then, is the present legal foundation of patents for invention. That it is an eminently imperfect and insecure one must be obvious upon a bare perusal. It is totally out of accordance with the wants and demands of the present period, however adequate it may have been to its immediate purpose. But this is not at all surprising, if it be remembered that the clause is a mere exception, hastily introduced into a severely contested Statute of monopolies, 21 Jac. I. c. 3. Defects of our Letters Patent. 1. Insecurity. Mr. Rotch before Patents' measure wholly political in its general character, and epitomizing, as it were, the great struggle between ancient prerogative on the one hand, and nascent liberty on the other, which characterized the period. Apart altogether from the comparative newness of the subject, that was no season for drawing nice distinctions about the rights of a particular class-the task of that day was to secure the rights of the whole. But now that all danger from "prerogative monopolies" has long ceased, now that inventors have become a numerous body, ranking among the greatest benefactors of the commonwealth, it is high time that it should cease to be a reproach to England that her patent laws are incomparably the worst in Europe-the most oppressive to the inventor-the least useful to the State. Such, beyond all doubt, is the case at present. The prime defects of our present system of letters patent are, first, their insecurity, and next, their extreme costliness. Strange as it must seem to a mind not entirely enwrapped in legal subtleties, the patent right, accorded by a solemn instrument under the Great Seal, Evidence of is actually held to be open to infringement; that is, to be no right at all, until after it shall have been confirmed by the verdict of a court of law. So that, for a first infringement, damages, nominal and not real, are invariably given: and thus, to the expense of a patent-in the first instance never less than three hundred and fifty pounds, if for the whole kingdom-there is added a large amount in law costs (not allowed upon the taxing), besides a loss of time and labour wholly incalculable. It may be worth while to cite one out of the many instances which continually occur. Committee, (1829) p. 107, et seq. 2. Costliness. Ib. Mr. Moses Poole, p. 87. Crossley v. Beverley Moody & M. vol. i. 283. Mr. Samuel Clegg, the first inventor of the wellknown and very ingenious gas-meter, assigned all his interest under his patent for that and other apparatus to Mr. Crossley, who, in Hilary term, 1829, brought an action in the King's Bench against an infringer on the gas-meter included in this patent, and obtained a verdict. But, on the costs being taxed, he remained four hundred pounds out of pocket, besides the expenses of previous proceedings in Chancery. And he had then to institute proceedings de novo, in order either to repress infringements or recover damages, that trial being merely a confirmation of his patent by the Court of King's Bench. Mr. John Farey, to whom by far the most important part of the information on this subject contained in the Commons' evidence of 1829 is due, and who was the Evidence, agent of Mr. Crossley in the trial above mentioned, on Patents. stated to the Committee that he had known cases of this kind which cost more than £1,500, and required "a series of trials or proceedings, so as to amount to thousands before any decision was obtained." And this is the boon which is graciously accorded to an inventor pour encourager les autres. p. 151. Lord Act, 5 & 6 Brougham's W. IV. c. 83. dix B. But the insecurity of patents does not arise from this radical defect alone, (which, it is to be observed, is wholly untouched by the recent "Patent Law Amendment Act" of 1835,) but also from other defects scarcely less serious. If, for example, the sealing of the patent be delayed, from whatever cause-whether "from the illness of the Chancellor, or his absence from business, or the Attorney General's engagements;" or by the neces- Evid. of sity of sending an express after the Lord Privy Seal; or 1829, p.47. by the payment of "one hundred guineas" to somebody or other for the purpose of procuring the royal signature out of due course-whether the delay arise from any or all of these circumstances, the petitioner is exposed to the entire loss of his property. For, if one of the workmen employed in the course of his necessary experiments should disclose his secret, and get some one to bring the invention into use, before all the multifarious forms are gotten through and completed, this will vitiate the Evid. of Patent Committee, p. 25-31. patent, because it dates, not from the filing of the petition, as would be just, but from the day of sealing. And even if the fraudulency of such use, and the petitioner's ignorance of it, can be clearly proved, his only chance of remedy consists in an expensive process before the judicial committee of the Privy Council. And even this remedy did not exist until 1835. From the delay and danger consequent on these idle and expensive forms-precluding inventors from making proper and careful experiments-and from the difference of the terms allowed for specification, consequent on having three several patents for the united kingdom, arise' two opposite evils of no small magnitude: the one, that an honest patentee, on proceeding to make experiments (after obtaining his sealed patent), in order to specify, may discover that he has given an insufficient title, thereby claiming less than his right; the other, that a dishonest patentee may very easily steal a valuable invention already specified, and put it into his own patent not yet specified, but bearing a prior date, thereby obtaining the profits of that to which he has no title. But another evil, greater perhaps than all those which have yet been mentioned, remains behind. While our entire system of patents seems expressly calculated to obstruct and complicate the fair claims of inventors, and to multiply in every direction the causes of expensive and interminable litigation, the tribunals before which this litigation and these conflicting claims are brought are of all tribunals among the least competent, and the least prepared, to decide causes of such a nature. For, in the first instance, the granting petitions for patents, and the decision between conflicting petitionsinvolving the whole merits of complex mechanical and chemical inventions-are left to the judgment of the Attorney-General for the time being, an officer whose adequate acquaintance with such subjects will most cer |