THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in presenting a Bill for the amendment of the Patent Laws, said, that their Lordships might recollect that last Session a Bill for the amendment of the Patent Laws passed through their Lordships' House, and went down to the other House of Parliament; but the state of Public Business at that time made it impossible to carry it through. By their Lordships' favour, he was permitted, when introducing the Bill, to explain at great length its objects, and he certainly should not think of trespassing now on their Lordships' indulgence by any lengthened statement:—but he was anxious, in asking permission to read the Bill a first time this Session, to state that there would be found in it two important provisions differing from the former Bill. They were these:—The proposal of the Bill of last Session was that there should be in future two classes of Letters Patent for inventions, the one to remain in force for a period of 14 years—the present term—the other for an invention which might not seem deserving" of so long a period, for the shorter term of seven years. He still thought it would not be an undesirable arrangement that there should be a distinction of that kind, having reference to the subject-matter of the invention. However, he had found many objections raised to that proposal by persons much concerned with patents; and they suggested so strongly that it would lead to uncertainty or to litigation, as to whether an invention should be entitled to seven or to 14 years' protection, that he had thought it right to omit that provision and to propose that patents should be given a protection for the uniform term of 14 years. The other alteration was of a different kind. In the Bill of last Session it was proposed, as the machinery for carrying it out, that the granting of Letters Patent should be under the direction and superintendence 664 of the Commissioners of Patents; that under them there should be Examiners of Patents, who should carefully examine as to the sufficiency of the specifications, and ascertain whether any previous patent had been granted for the same inventions. And then it was proposed that another class of persons—the Referees—not connected with the Patent Office, persons engaged in scientific pursuits, or conversant with the applied sciences, might be resorted to in the consideration of any particular patent, for the purpose of giving advice upon it. Here again he found considerable unwillingness to accede to an arrangement of that kind. On the one hand it was said that the services of persons sufficiently competent to give the required advice could not be obtained, except at a price that would be disproportioned to what would be the cost of the patent; and on the other, that great jealousies would be aroused by the selection of persons called upon to pronounce upon patents about to be brought before the public. "With respect to that part of the Bill, therefore, he had thought it best to confine its machinery to the Commissioners of Patents, and, under them, the Examiners, the regular officers of the Patent Office. These were the two principal points in the new Bill to which he had now to ask their Lordships to give a first reading.
Bill for consolidating with Amendments the Acts relating to Letters Patent for Inventions presented; read 1a; and to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday the 7th of March next. (No. 15.)