§ 89. Mr. CURRIEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the action of the Patent Office in declining to recognise the rights of a Scottish inventor, deceased, in patents issued to him for the United Kingdom on the ground that such patents are distinctively English estate; whether this is the usual practice; if so, whether it rests upon Statute or merely upon custom; whether the Treasury receives any share of the fees and costs thus exacted from Scottish estates; and whether the Government will consider the desirability of treating patent rights issued for the United Kingdom as national and not distinctively English estate?
§ Mr. PRETYMANIt has been the settled practice at the Patent Office for more than thirty years to ask for the resealing in the principal Probate Registry of the High Court in England, of any Scottish testamentary documents which affected a patent. A patent which is the property of a deceased inventor, domiciled in Scotland, is considered to be not only personal estate in Scotland, but also personal estate in England; inasmuch as the patent rights are effective throughout the United Kingdom. The practice rests upon Section 12 of the Confirmation and Probate Act, 1858. Resealing only is required and the only fees payable are the fees of the Probate Registry.