HINDMARCH ON “VENDING OR SELLING.”
“The sole privilege of making the invention as expressed ... is in truth the same in substance as the sole privilege of using and exercising it.... By the first section of the Statute of Monopolies, patents granting ‘the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using of anything’ are declared to be void, and the proviso in favour of inventions contained in the sixth section only extends to ‘grants of privilege of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures,’ leaving the sole buying or selling of anything within the prohibition.... The sole privilege granted by a Patent for an invention authorises the inventor ‘to make, use, exercise, and vend’ the invention.... And as no one can use the invention except the patentee, no one besides him can lawfully have such articles for sale.... Every part of the privilege granted by a Patent for an invention, when thus explained (!) is therefore clearly within the meaning of the exception contained in the Statute....”
I demur. Is there anything in the Statute to prevent a person importing articles and vending them though the same as the privileged person is alone allowed to make or work? In point of fact that surely might, when the statute was passed, be done from Scotland and Ireland as to manufactures not patented in these countries, but patented in England.
The number of Patents granted in the first fifty years after the Statute of Monopolies was seventy-two, or at the rate of less than one and a-half per annum.
The following list of applications for Patents up to the end of 1862, in several classes, is abridged from Mr. Edwards’ interesting treatise on, or rather against, “Letters Patent for Inventions:”—
| Oct., 1852, to Dec. 31, 1862. | Before Oct., 1852. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Railways and Railway Carriages | 1,418 | 630 | 2,018 |
| Telegraphs | 558 | 109 | 667 |
| Steam and Steam Boilers | 1,293 | 377 | 1,670 |
| Steam-engines | 1,228 | 704 | 1,932 |
| Spinning | 1,837 | 1,120 | 2,957 |
| Electricity, Galvanism, and Electroplating | 662 | 38 | 700 |
| Sewing and Embroidery | 352 | 40 | 392 |
| Heating and Evaporating | 1,108 | 373 | 1,481 |
| Fireplaces, Grates | 317 | 169 | 481 |
| Flues and Chimneys | 278 | 75 | 353 |
| Fuel | 227 | 129 | 356 |
| Ventilating Buildings, Carriages, Ships, &c. | 392 | 81 | 473 |