Most applications require drawings also to properly describe the matter, and these drawings must be done in the required manner and style, the Patent Office issues a leaflet of instructions as to the preparation of drawings for specifications, which leaflet details such points as, when the drawings should be sent, the paper they should be made on, the size of sheets required, arrangement on the sheets, thickness of lines required, style of drawings required, scale required, position on the sheets, type and style of figures and lettering, naming and numbering of the sheets, facsimile copy required, and how best to deliver them. An applicant having sent in the Provisional Specification, and received an acknowledgment with the date and number, is then secure as to the date on which his future Patent concerning it, will be dated from, and this is absolutely the only matter on which he can be certain, the rest is as yet unknown. It may well be that another applicant on the previous day applied for exactly the same Patent rights, and his application being one day in front would receive priority, and this fact cannot be ascertained until application is made for the Complete Patent. Again as there is an International Convention between the principal countries by which it is agreed that a patentee in one country may claim and obtain a Patent in any of the other countries, dated as from the date in which he obtained the Patent in his own country, provided he complied with certain regulations, etc., therefore a claim for a Patent might suddenly be made by someone outside the country, and might be obtained for a prior date to that of the applicant here. All this must be faced and the risk taken, on the other hand an applicant here for a British Patent has the same rights as to getting a Patent granted to him in any of the other countries in the Convention.

A little has been said above as to the fact that few Patents which are applied for are worth the time and expense involved, inventors should always remember that a Patent is onlv valuable when it is of such a nature that sales are certain, or at least are considered as certain by those who will have to put down money to either have it made, or to spend time and money in order to sell it. An invention which may be a big advance on anything previously done, and yet for which no demand exists, or can be created, is worthless from a financial point of view. It should also be remembered that the Patent Office do not investigate claims as to what the invention will do, still less is the granting of a Patent any guarantee in any shape or form. An inventor of anything of which he and others whom he can trust, think well, should be careful of another point, that the granting of a Provisional Protection to him does not prevent anyone making and selling the article, and continuing to do so up to the date on which the inventor obtains his Complete Patent, the one who copies and sells cannot be prevented by law, since no infringement has occurred, as the Patent was not granted. But when the complete Patent has been granted, then it may be possible by law to stop the making and selling by the non-Patentee, at the same time no proceedings can be taken for what has happened before the granting of the complete Patent.

It therefore follows that if the invention consists of a device that may be expected to have a very large sale quickly, that it should be kept secret until the complete Patent has been granted, and then put on to the market. A Patentee should mark his patented articles clearly so that no one can plead that thev did not know it was patented, the word Patent with the number and year should appear, it is not enough to simply put the words Patent or Patented.

It is an offence to falsely represent that an article is patented. Another point in connection with a patented article, and which is not widely realised, is that while a firm making and selling an article for which Provisional Protection has only been so far obtained, can sell these to shopkeepers or others on the understanding that a minimum price is to be adhered to, yet the makers have no rights in virtue of the Provisional Protection in enforcing their wishes. They may proceed by law against the shopkeeper if he should sell at a lower price, but only in virtue of any agreement of such between them. If, however, a complete Patent has been granted then the position is very different because then the makers' rights rest upon the law relating to patents. Such give a Patentee the right to sell his patented article either without any conditions attached, or with any condition he likes to couple to it. It apparently does not matter what condition he likes to attach to it, the view of the law is not altered, as the purchaser can take it or leave it as he likes. To prevent price cutting therefore of a patented article it would seem sufficient to cause notices of the lowest price at which it was to be sold, properly worded, to be printed on all packages, papers and advertisements. In the event then of any being sold at less than the fixed price, and this coming to the attention of the makers, they could proceed against those who sold, quite irrespective of whether or not they had any special or other agreement with them that they were not to cut the price.