HL Deb 11 March 1875 vol 222 cc1595-602

House in Committee (according to Order).

Clauses 1 to 5, inclusive, agreed to.

Clause 6 (Examiners of Patents).

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

said, that certain verbal Amendments in this clause were necessary, in order to give effect to an alteration which he proposed to make in those provisions of the Bill which applied to the Examiners and the Referees. As the Bill stood, it was proposed that the Examiners who were to make reports for the Law Officers should not be more than four or less than two in number, and it was intended that each application for a patent should be examined by one Examiner and one or two Referees. This plan had been much considered in various quarters, and numerous representations on the subject had been made to him. As the result of the best consideration he could give the point, he would move Amendments in Clause 6 and other clauses, having for their object to effect this alteration—that there should be two, and not more than six Examiners; that the list of Referees should be made by the Commissioners of Patents without the necessity of the concurrence of the Board of Trade; and that the association of a Referee with an Examiner should not be obligatory, but permissive. It was in consequence of this last alteration that it was thought advisable to provide that as many as six Examiners—instead of four, the number at present in the Bill—might be appointed.

Amendment moved, Clause 6, page 2, line 31, to leave out ("four") and insert ("six").

THE DUKE OF SOMERSET

wished to make this inquiry of the noble and learned Lord—who would be responsible for giving a patent after this Bill passed? Would it be the Commissioners of Patents, or would it be the Law Officers? He apprehended that it was not usual to grant such a power to unpaid Commissioners; and as to the Law Officers, he believed they had too much other business to do, to attend to patents in such a way as would enable them to act as judges. He wished also to ask as to the progress of the register and index of existing patents? He believed that there was a great deal yet to be done, and he doubted whether the proposed staff would be adequate to overtake the work in arrear and to keep abreast with the new work.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

said, he concurred with the noble Duke, that there was a great deal to be done in the way of indexing and classifying existing patents, but a great deal in that way had already been done. He was led to believe that the arrears might be cleared up by the time the working part of the Bill would come into operation with the assistance of the Examiners, who could be appointed immediately on the passing of the Act. In reply to the noble Duke's question—"Who was to be responsible for giving a patent?" his reply was, that beyond doubt the Law Officers would be responsible, subject to an appeal to the Lord Chancellor or a Judge of the High Court designated for the hearing of such appeals. No doubt the Law Officers were very much engaged; but up to a recent period, when a fixed salary was settled on them in lieu of fees, those learned Gentlemen drew an income of £4,000 or £5,000 from patents. From experience he knew that the hearing of applications for and objections against patents was a very troublesome duty for the Law Officers; and the most troublesome point about it was that although they heard both sides, they had to hear one side in one room and the other side in another room. It was proposed under this Bill that when any objection was made against the granting of a patent, the Law Officers should hear and dispose of it; and he did not think that was too much to expect of them.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed, to.

Clause 7, lines 3 and 4, to leave out ("with the concurrence of the Board of Trade").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 8 and 9 agreed to, with Amendments,

Clause 10 (Reference to Examiner and Referee).

Amendment made, after "Commissioners shall refer the application to an Examiner," insert "and a referee, or, if in any case they think it expedient, two referees."

Clause 11 (Report of Examiner and Referee).

Amendment made, after "after the invention," leave out "is new, as far as they can judge thereof from an examination of," and insert "appears open to objection on the ground of want of novelty, as far as can be ascertained from."

New Clause to follow Clause 11 (Association of referee or referees with examiner). In any case, as prescribed, there may be associated with the examiner a referee or two referees. The referee or referees shall be nominated according to a fixed rotation, which shall not be made public, or in the other mode prescribed (if any). Every referee before acting with reference to an application shall make a declaration, as prescribed, to the effect that he has no interest therein. The referee or referees shall join with the examiner in considering the application, specification, and relative documents, and in reporting thereon.

Clause 12 (Reference to and Report by Law Officer).

Amendment made, after line 13, add as new paragraph— The Law Officer shall consider the same, and may, if he thinks fit, hear the applicant and any person having filed notice of opposition.

Clauses 13 to 15, inclusive, agreed to.

Clause 16 (Times for Sealing.)

Amendment made, after ("application") add— ("But it shall not be competent for the patentee to institute any action, suit, or proceeding in respect of an infringement committed before the publication by the commissioners of the application, specification, and relative documents.")

Clause 17 (Extent of Patent).

Amendment made, page 5, line 6, leave out ("the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.")

Clause 18 (Power for Lord Chancellor to extend time in certain cases) agreed to.

Clause 19 (Conditions of patents for foreign inventions).

Amendment made, after line 3, add as new subparagraph— (3a.) The publication in the United Kingdom of the invention, by the circulation or republication therein of the foreign patent, or of any specification or document referred to therein or connected therewith, shall not affect the validity of the patent.

Clauses 20 to 47, inclusive, agreed to, with Amendments.

Clause 48. (Power for Commissioners to make general rules regulating details, business of office, &c).

THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

said, he proposed to ask their Lord-ships to omit from the clause these words— For establishing, subject to the approval of the Treasury, and opening to public inspection, a museum or collection of models of inventions, and other objects relating to patents and to inventions. Reading these words by the light of the Reports of the Commissioners of Patents, he thought it was not difficult to see why this provision had been inserted in the Bill. During a considerable period those Commissioners had been clamorous, and with good reason, for better accommodation for themselves, their officials, and their library, and in the Report of 1873 they dwelt on the necessity of providing it. No doubt, it was the purpose of these words, that the increased accommodation should it be accorded, should be appropriated to the purposes of a Museum of Patents. Now, he could not but think that the Patent Commissioners were not the best body to whose care and management such a Museum should be intrusted, composed as the Commission was of 13 gentlemen, no fewer than eight of whom were judicial or legal officials, whose time was occupied with other matters. He objected to any such addition to the duties of the Commis sioners, upon the ground that the formation and custody of a collection of inventions had nothing to do with the real purpose of this Bill. It was not desirable to have in this country such a collection of patents as was to be found in the United States and other countries, where before an inventor could get a patent it was necessary for him to deposit a model. The result of the American system had been, he was informed, the accumulation of a mass of models, a great part of which were of a more or less rubbishy character. In this country our Patent Museum would be made up of models and specimens voluntarily contributed. From an inscription which was sufficiently prominent at South Kensington it must be pretty generally known to their Lordships that we already had what was called a Patent Museum in the metropolis. As the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack lived in the neighbourhood, perhaps he occasionally visited the Patent Museum; and if that were so, he thought the noble and learned Lord could scarcely think the arrangement there afforded a favourable example of the management of such a museum. The first object that caught the eye was a glass case containing a collection of articles illustrating the manufacture of india-rubber, conspicuous amongst which was a pile of small india-rubber objects, over which was an inscription "Omnium Gatherum Tobacco Pouches." And "omnium gatherum" was a very proper description of the contents of the Museum. It was true that more important objects, such as the locomotive which had killed Mr. Huskisson, another known to its admirers as "Puffing Billy," and other venerable locomotives, occupied the centre of the Museum. Now, a collection of models of steam engines and locomotives was both interesting and instructive; but he thought the noble and learned Lord and his Colleagues scarcely desired to be the custodians of a collection so extraordinary and ill-assorted as that now in the Museum at South Kensington. But what he wished more seriously to point out was that the subject of such collections had recently been under the consideration of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science, of which Commission he had the honour of being a Member, and that Commission, after suggesting in their Report, the formation of a collection of physical and mechanical instruments "submit for consideration whether it may not be expedient that this Collection, the Collection of the Patent Museum, and that of the Scientific and Educational Department of the South Kensington Museum, should be united and placed under the authority of a Minister of State." He believed the step which the noble and learned Lord was about to take was opposed to the spirit of that recommendation, and he trusted the noble and learned Lord would consider whether means might not be arrived at for reconciling the provisions of this Bill with the recommendation of that Royal Commission. He begged to move the omission from the clause of the words quoted in the commencement of his observations.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

said, he should give the noble Marquess's proposition the most unqualified resistance. No communication had been made to him on the subject of an interference with the present management of the Patent Museum. As to the suggestion of the noble Marquess, it was already under a Minister of State—the Minister who held the Great Seal. Before the Committee of the House of Commons there was given a large body of evidence quite sufficient to justify the proposition contained in the Bill. It was quite true that the present Patent Museum was not well arranged; a state of things which had been complained of for many years. It was said that the present Museum was simply a warehouse. "What the Royal Commissioners recommended was that as the existing collection of patents had cost the country a large sum of money, a portion of the building at South Kensington should be appropriated to their collection and arrangement; and a Committee of the House of Commons recommended that a portion of the large sum of money which remained in the hands of the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851—upwards of £170,000 he believed—should be appropriated to the same purpose. There were already proper officers to arrange the models, and if at any future time it was thought desirable, it might be placed under a State Department. As to what the noble Marquess had said about the collection of tobacco-pouches, facetious observations might be made on the contents of every Museum, though he doubted that the term "rubbishy" was applicable to the Patent Museum at Washington. The Committee of the House of Commons recommended that the Museum of Patents should be in connexion with the Patent Office, and in the absence of a more definite alternative scheme than that shadowed forth in the recommendation to which the noble Marquess had referred, he would ask their Lordships to reject the Amendment, and concur in the proposal made by the Bill.

THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

would remind the noble and learned Lord that the Committee of the House of Commons sat in 1864, while the Royal Commission had held its sittings very recently. He was aware that the Patent Commissioners were not to blame for the disorder at South Kensington. But what he objected to was, that the Patent Museum should be under the Commissioners at all—he desired to see it and other collections and museums under the control of a State Department. He wished to ask who was to be responsible under the Bill for the selection of the men of science who were to form the Board of Management? As for what he had said of the American collection, he did not wish to be disrespectful towards the Museum at Washington; but when models of all the inventions for which patents were asked in the United States must be deposited, he thought some of the models must be very trumpery objects.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

quite agreed with the noble Marquess that some of the models must be of the character he described; but, as a whole, the Museum at Washington would not deserve such a character.

LORD SELBORNE

said, that the difference between his noble Friend (the Marquess of Lansdowne) and his noble and learned Friend was scarcely any difference at all, and as the clause in its present shape did not pledge anyone against any step which Parliament might think fit to adopt hereafter with reference to the hands in which such Museums should be placed, he would recommend his noble Fried to withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave of the House, withdrawn.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 48 and the remaining Clauses agreed to, with Amendments.

The Report of the Amendments to be received on Friday the 19th instant; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 36.)