The Potteries Examiner : — 1880-05-29 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

PATENT LAWS.  Referring to the patent laws in his charge to the jury at the Walsall Sessions on Wednesday, the Recorder (Mr. Neal), said there had recently been in Walsall a most melancholy and appalling lesson of the dangers that surround all modern machinery connected with steam, and of the necessity that existed for adopting all safeguards that invention could suggest. It was within his knowledge that a patent to prevent the explosion of boilers, and which apparently had every prospect of rendering such an accident as the boiler explosion at Walsall all he impossible, was on the point of being taken out ten years ago, but was delayed, and would be probably lost, through the unjust action of the patent laws. Not only were patents in this country expensive to get, but still more expensive to maintain ; and they ware clogged with a clause in each grant, owing to which many inventors rather than submit went to their graves with their inventions on. revealed or unused. At present every patentee was bound to allow his patent to be used by Government, the remuneration for the use being fixed by Government. Words were at a loss to describe the peculiar honesty of such an embargo. For the first time, as far aa he knew, the lute , Government introduced a bill for the abolition of this most odious provision, list, unfortunately, the desirable reform becamdiene of the abandoned 'Ails of the Beaconsfield Government, and had not yet been taken op this session. There was no law which ingetruity could frame which would confer a greater benefit on trade and commeree--he might say en humanity at large—than a reform in the patent laws —viz., the roluction to the smallest and must nominal amount of the fees and costs in taking ont new patents; and in the place of such fees the solutitu• tion of an ad valorem duty of, say, 5 per cent, on every sale or tranafer of every patent which, by its success, had bcceme valuable. In a few years Government would thus gain a far larger revenue than it was now possible to acquire by the oppreesi vs fees for new patents. This wagons great cause why the United States had gone ahead of England in so many matters. Iler patent laws stimulated invention to its highest point; for artisans there, for a comparative thee, could patent the productions of their skill.  Austria has proposed to the Porte to bleciade Scutari with her troops, to cut off communication between that town and the Albanians at Tusi. The Canadian Committee for the relief of Irish distress has transmitted £560 for repairing the pier at Fenoyle, county Galway. Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, 31.1'., Mr. Fowler, M.P., and Hr. O'Donnell have received anonymous letters with threats of murder for opposing Mr. Bradlaugh's admission to the House of Commons.  Mr. DrAtit..fu. auuressing a crunnea tt Nat harninon, deienneu tric Nurse Le had pursued in Parliament.  Thu Hee. Dr. Marker, head-roaster of Eing's Cofl go School, has accepted the post at Warden of St. Augtistine's College, Ointerbury. The inquiry into the cause of the explosion at in.l on Park Colliery on the 19th May, 'Thereby foar tut n lost their Uses; has concluded. A verdict of accidental death teas returned. •