HC Deb 19 June 1865 vol 180 c448
MR. LOWE

said, he would beg to ask the noble Lord the Chairman of the Patent Law Commission, What steps it is proposed to take with regard to the Report of that Commission?

LORD STANLEY

said, in reply, that the Patent Law Commission appointed three years ago was confined as regarded the scope of its inquiry. It was not a Commission to inquire into the principle upon which the Patent Laws were founded, but simply into the working of the existing laws, and to suggest any amendments which might be made in the working of those laws. The Report of that Commission was before the House, and, as the House was aware, they had suggested many amendments in detail. But he was bound to say that having had the subject under consideration now for nearly three years, having heard a great variety of evidence upon it, and being compelled to consider it in all its bearings, the effect of that inquiry on his mind had been to raise a very serious doubt as to the utility of Patent Laws at all. He was not the only Member of the Commission upon whom that effect had been produced. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns), who was not now present, had authorized him to say that in that expression of opinion he entirely concurred, and he might say the same for the hon. Member for Bradford. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Hear, hear!] That being the case he should feel some difficulty in proposing to the House, either in the present or any future Session, those amendments of detail which had been embodied in the Report of the Commission. The preliminary question in his opinion for the House to try was this, whether they meant to have a Patent Law at all. If the House came to a decision that they intended to retain the Patent Law, then he should confidently recommend the amendments which the Commission had proposed as better qualified than any others in their opinion to meet the inevitable inconvenience which arises from the continuance of the law. But the House ought first to have an opportunity fairly and deliberately of deciding upon that larger question which had not been submitted to the Patent Law Commission—namely, whether it was expedient that Patents for inventions should continue to be a part of the law.