ABSTRACT
In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth routinely granted licences or patents over inventions or technology for a period of twenty years or more and, on occasion, a patent would be renewed or even reissued to someone new. The Statute of Monopolies saved existing patents for inventions and capped the length of any such patent at twenty-one years. The underlying common law rule remained and so a patent should still only have been granted for a reasonable period, but if a period of greater than fourteen years was reasonable then it was capped at that length. In the literature on patent history, one of the most commonly described reasons for obtaining a private Act was to extend the term of a patent. The number of private Acts sought to extend patents remained very low in comparison with other areas of private legislation. Parliament stepped in the Judicial Committee Act 1844 and confirmed that a prolongation could be granted to an assignee.
