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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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TTTT C.O. 885

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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Sic EDMUND BARTON: A difficulty, of course, is that there are half a dozen self-governing Colonies throughout the Empire over which such a resolution might apply. Primarily, as in all such cases, they would have to pass a law identical in terms.

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Mr. FULLER: Do you mean if a patent is taken out in England, it should also hold good throughout the Empire? Is that your meaning?

Sir-EDMUND BARTON: If it were possible.

The SECRETARY OF STATE: It should be reciprocally protected.

Mr. FÜLLER: Yes.

Sir EDMUND BARTON: That can only be done by Imperial legislation, and if that end were kept in view, then nothing need be done particularly by the Parliament concerned except to obtain the adhesion to the principle, and request the Imperial Government to embody the principle in a law of Imperial application.

The SECRETARY OF STATE: It strikes me that the best and most practical way of dealing with it will be to rofer the mattor to a conference of experts. If it were possible for the different Colonies to appoint cach an expert with something like plenipotentiary powers, it might be possible to arrange upon a common law of patents which, then, if the Colonies desired, could be made the law of the Empire by Imperial legislation.

Sir EDMUND BARTON: Yes, something of that kind would pave the

way.

Sir WILFRID LAURIER: I think something could be done by legislation in the Imperial Parliament by stating that a patent granted in any Colony that took any part in it would be accepted in this country by simple registration, that all the facilities that are granted to us would be granted in the other Colony which adopts this. You will find the difficulty lies in the want of uniformity in the law. I think this is a class of legislation as to which uniformity of the law is wanted. In all these things Australasian nations are equally interested with Canada. Would it not be well if Great Britain gives us the privilege for our patents to extend the same privilege to patents taken out in our own country and similarly in Australia, I do not object to the suggestion put forward by Sir Edmund Barton.

The SECRETARY OF STATE: It would be impossible to say off-hand whether we could give reciprocal treatment of that kind without examining very carefully the differences which exist between the two laws.

Sir EDMUND BARTON: Within a short time we shall probably have a law passed in the Commonwealth to enable one patent to cover the whole of Australia and Tasmania instead of half a dozen being required, one in cach separate State. The present law is that a man bas to go to the Patent Office in each State. We have power to pass a law, and I think we shall pass one without much difficulty, which will enable one patent to cover the whole of Australia. That will be a beginning at

You have the same law any rate. in Canada.

Sir WILFRID LAURIER: We have a Federal law.

Sir EDMUND BARTON : If something of the same kind could be done in South Africa, and there is a suggestion for that in a letter to Sir Albert Hime, which I hold in my hand, the difficulty would be met, that is to say, that if it is impossible to arrange one patent to cover the Empiro, four patents might do instead of about 40, as nt present. If Great Britain and India and the Crown Colonies formed one group, Canada another, and Australia another, it would be four with New Zealand acting separately. Then, of course, there would be a great relief. Canada has taken the lead in the matter. Perhaps if the

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Imperial law in the first instance were to cover Britain, India, and Crown Colonios with provision in it that any Colony might by Act of Parliament extend that provision to itself, that would be an easier way of approaching towards a general system.

The SECRETARY OF STATE: If it would be hardly thought feasible, or if it were thought to be premature to have an expert conference to deal with the question of law, we might raise the matter by special communi- cations between ourselves and the different Colonies. For instance, we might have a proposition coming from tho Australian Commonwealth to make the patents reciprocal in the Colonies and the Mother Country. That wo would consider on its merits.

Sir EDMUND BARTON: Porhaps this would be a feasible plan: if you wore to ask each self-governing Colony to send forward the opinion of its patent expert on the subject we might arrive at a very useful body of opinion upon which legislation would arise. I think it is very desirable that some steps should be taken in this direction.

Mr. SEDDON: I might say that we, in our Colony, think that Groat Britain is behind in the matter of the patent laws-behind the Colonial laws and the patonteos in our Colonies complain, and if the laws that are now in force in the Colonios were compared with those which have been put into force by the Imperial Government, I think it would be found that there are many advantages in the one that are not in the other. We really ought to have a comparison made of existing laws, and certain amendments might be suggested by the patent experts in the respective Colonies. I believe by so doing that some good would como of it. I do not know myself whether it is feasible to get a meeting of experts, but there is, I understand, a Patent Law Amendment Bill now before the Imperial Parliament.

The SECRETARY OF STATE: There is.

Mr. SEDDON: Would it not be wise if some general clause were inserted in that Act that would leave something to bo done in the direction indicated by Sir Edmund Barton, and which, I think myself, would be appreciated by the people in the Colonies. Patentoes in our Colonies complain that at home --and so far as we are concerned, at home they are not nearly so liberal as we are there are difficulties in the way which the Colonial law might well be applied to.

The SECRETARY OF STATE: I suppose there is a difference in the feos.

Mr. SEDDON: Fees and other drawbacks. That is the general opinion that I have heard expressed, and it was stated before I left New Zealand that something should be done in liberalising; in fact the shoe pinches moro-in liberalising the patent laws of the Mother Country. America no doubt heads the world in so far as her patents and her patent laws are most liberal there. I think we could all take a leaf out of the book of America in that respect --in respect of patenting inventions.

The SECRETARY OF STATE: Of course, there is great difference of opinion in regard to the principles upon which a patent law should be based, and this is the view of a great number, at any rate, of our experts, that while liberally encouraging now invention you should discourago taking out patents which are not valuable themselves, but which stand in the way of patents or inventions that would be valuable. A patent is very frequently used as a means of blackmail of the practical inventor. One invention which has never been practically applied and which cannot bo practically applied is nevertheless a master invention which controls all subsequent improvements, and to that extent acts disadvantageously to the country in which such legislation exists, and certainly you would find among our experts au opinion that that is the case to some extent in the United States of America ; and there

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