‘Patent Law and the Great Exhibition’ [letter], Engineer and Machinist, and Engineering and Scientific Review (1850–1)

Indeed the only great improvement in the law since that time was effected in the reign of Queen Anne, when every patentee was required to enroll a specification, setting forth the practical details of his invention, previous to which it appears to have been custom for patentees to give very full statements in their titles, and to be bound to take apprentices in inventions of great importance. The only modern amendments in the patent law are Lord Brougham’s Acts, which relieved the inventor of the many hardships attending too strict an interpretation of the specification – the too rigorous requirement of entire novelty – and made provision for extension of a patent beyond the fourteen years, &c. The defects of the present patent laws are so many and varied, that it is almost impossible to say which is the greatest defect; but the present paper will be confined to the excessive expense and unnecessary delay accompanying the obtaining letters patent.