Journal of the Society of Arts : Volume XLIX, No. 2527 [‎698v] (22/36)

434
JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.
[April 26, 1901.
tnay become valueless through something
better being found out in the meantime.
As M. von Hefner Alteneck expresses it:
Xi At the time of application the invention is at
such a tender age that it is unable to sustain
the burden of a severe examination. All the
same the inventor is forced to apply for a
patent to secure his rights against other people
■whom he has to employ to work out the details
of his invention.”
As a remedy for these evils M. von Hefner
Alteneck recommends that the inventor should
have the option at the time of making his
application, either to demand a patent in
accordance with the present (German) practice,
viz., strictly examined for novelty and utility,
or to have the invention merely registered, in
which case it would be examined somewhat in
the same way as English patents are.
A registered patent should be convertible
into an examined patent at any subsequent
time whenever the inventor desires it. Should
the registered patent fail to pass the examina
tion, or if the examination is stopped before it is
concluded, the patent becomes void altogether.
It should also be competent for anybody to
petition the Patent Office to annul a registered
patent for specified reasons, but even if such
a petition were successfully resisted the patent
would remain a registered one. Any attempt
to pass off a registered patent as an examined
patent should be punishable.
M. von Hefner Alteneck mentioned in the
paper that he had for a long time considered
the American system greatly superior to the
German system of examination until his faith
was shaken by hearing an American inventor
of great experience in patent matters express
the fervent conviction that the German system
was ever so much better than the American
one.
During the discussion of that paper,*
Mr. West defended the strict examination on
the plea that a patent should be considered to
be of the nature of a contract by which the
Government for the valuable consideration of
the invention, granted a monopoly which the
Government should guarantee by establishing
the novelty and utility of the invention at the
time of granting the patent, and to meet
M. von Hefner Alteneck’s objection, Mr. West
su Sfr^ s t6d the introduction of the American
system of “caveat,” to give the inventor time
to develop his invention.
He further approved of the system of placing
* E.T.Z., 10.5 00, page 380.
an application “in interference” with an
existing patent for a similar invention, as this
tended to diminish the necessity for large firms
to have their own patent staff looking out for
applications that might interfere with their
rights.
Lastly, he suggested that no patent or
publication more than 15 years old at the
time of application should be available for
proving want of novelty, as he considered that
an invention which has failed to find favour for
15 years should not stand in the way of an
inventor who may have hit upon an old idea
which has become practicable through the
general progress since it was abandoned.
It may be added that the present practice in
Germany is to preclude publications more than
100 years old from being used as anticipations.
On the other hand, Mr. Stort considered the
existing patent system of Germany as
inherently faulty, pointing out that none of the
most important inventions had been successful
in passing the ordeal, £.£\, in electrical engi
neering, no general patents had been granted
for telephones, glow lamps, arc lamps, differen
tial regulations of arc lamps, core carbons and
wireless telegraphy; and that the master
patent for three-phrase currents had been
declared void on account of not being worked.
He, therefore, supported M. von Hefner
Alteneck’s proposal, with the modification that
anybody might ask the Patent Office to
examine strictly a registered patent. He felt
sure that by the system of merely registering
patents in the first instance the work of the
Patent Office would be greatly reduced, and,
therefore, much improved.
The Chairman of the German Society for the
Legal Protection of Industrial Property also
spoke in the dicussion and invited the Elektr.
Techn. Verein to take part in a Congress of
his society at Frankfurt, where the subject
would be further discussed, intimating that
their proposal would include the recommenda
tion to divide the examination, so that an
application should at once be tested for novelty
and only later on for utility and ingenuity.
I he proposals of M. von Hefner Alteneck
were laid before the Frankfurt Congress by the
delegation of the Elektr. Techn. Verein with
the additional recommendation that the rule of
the German Patent-law, limiting the right of
the public to demand the revocation of a patent
to five years from the date of the grant, should
be abolished.
In the report* at the Kiel meeting of the
* E.T.Z., 2.8.00.