that it should be lawful for a person to take out a patent for an invention communicated to him by a British subject, provided, of course, that it appeared the communication was voluntary.

Will you state your opinion as to the propriety of allowing persons to take out a patent for a shorter period, paying a proportionate smaller fee ?—I should think the fees of patents cannot be made proportionate to the importance of the invention, and consequently it may be advantageous to allow individuals judging for themselves, to secure a monopoly of less than fourteen years, on paying diminished fees.

Might it not be advisable to make different regulations for the different sorts of inventions, separating, for instance, the mechanical from the chemical discoveries?—I think it would.

Mr. Mark Isambard Brunel, called in; and examined.

You are an engineer?—I am.

Will you have the goodness to state any views you may have with respect to patents, or the patent laws?—I know very little of the patent laws; I have had several patents myself. I think that patents are like lottery offices, where people run with great expectations, and enter any thing almost; and if they were very cheap, there would be still more obstacles in the way of good ones. I think the expense of patents should be pretty high in this country, or else if it is low you will have hundreds of patents more yearly, and you would obstruct very much the valuable pursuits.

Do

you

conceive that 5007. is not too much? That is too dear; I think that the expense of three patents is too dear; there are very few that take them from that circumstance; they imagine that it is enough to have a patent for England, and they think it is of very little use to have a patent for Ireland.

VOL. IV.-SECOND SERIES.

N

Could you suggest any means by which this too great facility of granting patents might be remedied otherwise than by the expense ? It is very difficult; it would be a very desirable thing to give more time to improve the invention, and then to come with a complete specification.

Do any means occur to you of protecting the applicant for a patent during the interval after he has applied for a patent and before the patent is sealed?What is called a caveat is one of the means of doing that, and it has some effect, because then notice is given if another person comes to solicit a patent, if it can be detected in the head of that patent, that it has a similar object with that for which another person has taken a patent who has already entered a caveat. The caveat might be a little more extensive than it is, because if you change the name of the thing, it escapes the observation of the officers, and the two patents both go on; but if they are alike, there is a stop directly of the second. They are called before the Attorney General, who hears both sides, and he says to the second, you are like the other, and therefore first come first served.

Have you considered whether it would be advantageous to have a commission of persons appointed to examine the specifications? I think it would be a very good thing; I should imagine that it would be an object for that commission to receive a rough outline of the invention, and to give the inventor a year or two to improve his machine, and then he may come again to the commission, and deliver a specification with all the improvements he has made during that time; that, I think, would be desirable.

Do you agree with the last witness in recommending that the patents should not be issued before the specification is ready, but that the certification should be contained in the patent when it is issued ?—I see no inconvenience in that. Are there any particular points with respect to patent or patent laws upon which you could give the Committee any information?-Nothing occurs to me.

What do you think of the present rule of law, that the patents cannot be given for an abstract principle ?—I think that is wise, and ought to remain as it is; it would be dangerous to grant a patent merely upon a principle.

Supposing a person to have discovered a valuable principle, should he not be entitled to some remuneration from those that carry it into effect?-Of course.

Supposing any person should discover a means of making that principle useful to the public, would it not be right that the person who discovered the principle should have some compensation?-Certainly.

But you think that the person is not entitled to any patent right for the discovery of a principle, unless he has discovered some mode of carrying it into effect?-No, as a principle it is of no use whatever; it may remain ages, as steam has remained ages, unused.

Are you aware of any valuable inventions for which patents have been granted, that have been lost upon some technical point?-I cannot specify any one in particular, but it is generally known that there are such cases, and a great hardship it is, when, for a trifling flaw, a patent is set aside; I have had to support my own right in one instance; I took out a patent for an improvement, and I specified the thing altogether; I could not maintain my action, because I was told I ought to have specified and defined what preceded, and what was my improvement; now, every body could know what existed before, and they might have used it, but it was very hard for me to lose the patent because that was not exactly specified according to the law.

Have you considered any remedy for that inconvenience ?— There would be no inconvenience whatever in allowing the patent to stand good, because any one might take the preceding part, without infringing the patent.

You are aware that if a person specifies any thing old in patents he loses his patent; do you se any objection to that?

There is a great hardship in that, if it is a thing which does in fact set his patent aside, then of course it ought to fall; but if it is a trifling thing, he ought to have the benefit of the remainder. It is a thing which nobody can guard against, because no inventor can know the thousands of patents that have preceded.

When a patent has been infringed, what remedy has the patentee?-An injunction against the supposed infringer; but if he closes his doors, you have great difficulty to get a knowledge of what he has done: the person says, My invention is not like yours, and I will not show it, because there are important things in it.

Upon the whole, do you think the patent laws are beneficial to the public?-Very much so.

What is your opinion as to the period of fourteen years ?—It is a great deal for some, and not enough for some others; I shall lose probably six years before I come to make any thing of my present patent.

Are you aware of the practice in France, with respect to the period of time that is granted?—Yes; that is better.

Can you suggest any better plan than that ?-Perhaps there might be better plans for this country.

Do you think it would be desirable to allow a longer time for muturing the invention, before putting in the specification ?— I think it would; if a longer time was allowed for an invention to be matured, the fee might be increased without any bad

consequence,

Would you increase the time beyond fourteen years?—I think that might be done, in some cases.

In whom would you leave the discretion of giving a longer period? That is a difficulty which I am not capable of removing.

Should the longer period be given by way of extension of the old period, or as an original period?-I think it ought to be an extension of the patent.

Would you think it desirable that a man might take out a patent for a shorter period than fourteen years?—Yes.

In that case do you think he ought to pay a smaller fee?— Yes.

The establishment of a commission has been mentioned as one of the propositions for the regulation of patents; do not you conceive that there would be much objection to a commission of that description, arising from the jealousies that would subsist ?—Very great; if the invention could be laid before them, without knowing from whom it comes, it would be very desirable.

Do you think that in most cases parties could be brought to agree in the appointment of referees ?—It would then be partial; because each party would of course name as many of his friends as he could.

Do not you conceive that the Secretary of State might appoint pro re nata commissions of proper persons that would be satisfactory, upon the whole, to the public?—I have not thought enough of that; it is a serious question to answer.

What is your opinion as to the present mode of trying the validity of a patent by a jury?—I have frequently said, that I might as well. toss for the fate of a patent; it is an intricate question for a jury, and in many cases it is quite unintelligible to them.

In such cases would not the appointment of a tribunal composed of scientific men, be very desirable?-Certainly it would be a very good thing; for example, one might say that the Royal Society would be a proper tribunal.

Do you conceive that the chance of having a patent fairly tried is greater with a special jury than with a common jury?— I think it is better; but if it is to be decided by a jury, it would be much better that it should be by some persons in the profession; at any rate it should be by competent persons.

Is not the number of such competent persons so limited, that