Excerpt from The Present Law and Practice Relating to Letters Patent for Inventions The English Law of Letters Patent is of the greatest interest both from the legal and the commercial point of view. It was the forerunner and the model of the Patent Laws of all countries; in the past it has greatly helped to build up the commercial supremacy of this Country, and on the certainty and justness of this law and its administration depends to-day the Willingness of capital to assist in developing new inventions. But the subject is one whose treatment presents great difficulties to the author, since the majority of the reported decisions really turn on questions of fact. The Courts have quite properly realised this and the practice of quoting numerous authorities on such questions as subject-matter and infringement has greatly decreased. Nevertheless the citation of a really apposite decision is often of the greatest value, and the just appreciation of prior decisions is also of great assistance to those who have to advise on questions relating to Letters Patent. I have therefore attempted to give in a digested and classified form the decisive points in all such cases as may be likely to be of assistance for either of these purposes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.