My first appeal is to Sir E. Coke’s “Institutes:”—
“If the substance was in being before, and a new addition made thereunto, though that addition made the former more profitable, yet it is not a new manufacture in law.”
That by a manufacture was meant something so definite as to involve or imply an art in the sense of a trade, will be seen by another quotation which I make from Serjeant Hawkins, who says—“the King may grant the sole use of an art invented or first brought into the realm.” So also in “Bacon’s Abridgment.” The Court of King’s Bench held—
“A grant of the sole use of a new invented art is good.... This is tied up by the statute to the term of fourteen years; for after that time it is presumed to be a known trade.”
Mr. Hindmarch writes—
“It was long doubted whether a mode, method, or process of itself, and apart from its produce or results, could legally be made the subject of a Patent privilege.”
After citing cases, he adds—
“These cases show clearly that a process of manufacturing, separate and apart, may be made the subject of a Patent privilege.”
Mr. Coryton, in his volume on “The Law of Letters Patent,” expresses his mind thus plainly:—
“On the assumption that a Patent confers a monopoly, it follows directly that the subject-matter of the Patent must be a material thing, capable of sale,[2] and cannot be either an improvement, principle, method, process, or system. In other words, the subject-matter must be, as it was originally defined, a ‘new manufacture.’ A thousand evils have arisen from affixing other than the literal interpretation to the terms,” &c.