ABSTRACT
Starting a history of the role of private legislation in patent law with the enactments in the two Parliaments of 1621 and 1624 may seem somewhat disingenuous. There were no "proper" private Bills relating to patent law enacted in either Parliament. There were two public Acts and one judgment which was enrolled as an enactment. The Parliaments of the 1620s are well documented in the political diaries of certain members of the House of Commons and, albeit in a more limited fashion, in Henry Elsyng's notes of House of Lords debates. The Censure Act 1621 was the enrolment of a judgment against four individuals: Sir Giles Mompesson, Sir Francis Michell, Francis Bacon the Lord Chancellor, and Edward Flood. The judicature procedure that tried Mompesson and Michell is said by Foster to have evolved out of that for private Bills. The Parliaments of 1621 and 1624 are clearly pivotal in the history of patent law.
