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| Citation | 2 Edw 7 c. 34 |
|---|---|
The Patents Act of 1902 (2 Edw 7 c 34) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, changing some aspects of the administration of British patents mainly to adopt practices that were said to work well in other countries.
Provisions
editThey'd had a "registration system" and the law required an additional "examination" to check on the novelty of the invention.
- Quote from Khan: "The 1883 act provided for the employment of "examiners" but their activity was limited to ensuring that the material was patentable and properly described. . . . It was not until 1902 that the British system included an examination for novelty."[1]
"The Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act of 1883 brought into being the office of Comptroller General of Patents and a staff of patent examiners who were able to carry out limited examination on patent applications. The examination was predominantly to ensure an accurate description of the invention was provided by the specification, but no investigation into novelty was carried out." The new law expanded the examination of applications to cover the novelty question, raising the standards, making the practices in the British system more like those of the U.S. and German patent offices.
From Macleod et al: "A limited degree of examination was introduced by the Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act of 1883, to check that the specification claimed no more than a single invention and that it was properly described. It was not, however, until the Patents Act of 1902 required an official examination for 'prior art' (in the previous 50 years' UK patent records) that the UK system ceased to be one of registration: up to that point the burden of scrutiny lay with the patentee and his or her agent. The later Patents and Designs Act of 1907 further extended the scope of examination in order to exclude 'frivolous' patents that were 'contrary to natural laws', and for the first time allowed the examiners to refuse a patent on grounds of lack of novelty".[2]
Part of the Act amended requiring the granting of compulsory licences. That part came into force on 18 December 1902.
Effects
editThe additional work to do examinations of patent applications made a reorganisation of the Patent Office necessary; they expanded from 70 to 260 examiners.[3][4]
The new examination for novelty was "not regarded as stringent as in other countries."[1]
Only a small percentage of patents were actually rejected or withdrawn as a result of the new examinations provision, so the ongoing trend to increasing numbers of patents applied for and granted was not significantly affected by the 1905 change.[1]
In Oct 1904 it was determined when the examinations would start in 1905.[5]
References
edit- ^ a b c Zorina Khan. 2006.An Economic History of Patent Institutions. EH.net encyclopedia
- ^ Christine MacLeod, Jennifer Tann, James Andrew, and Jeremy Stein. Evaluating Inventive Activity: The Cost of Nineteenth-Century UK Patents and the Fallibility of Renewal Data. The Economic History Review, 56:3, Aug., 2003, pp. 537-562. At Jstor
- ^ The History of Patents, at Wilson Gunn patent and trade mark attorneys site.
- ^ Balfour's 1903 reply in Parliament
- ^ [1]
Further reading
edit- Christine Macleod. 2009. Inventing the Industrial Revolution
The English Patent System, 1660–1800. Cambridge Univ Press. pp40-48
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