Vickipedia

PATENT OFFICE LIBRARY, and MUSEUM. The present organization of these establishments arose mainly out of the act relating to Patents (q. v.) passed in 1852. Rooms were rented in Southampton Buildings, London, for the office as reorganized; a superintendent of specifications was appointed; and a plan was adopted for making the system as useful to the public as possible.

The Office.—All the specifications of patents from the earliest date were examined, and minutely classified according to their contents. The patents from 1711 to 1852 were found to amount to the large number of 12.977; and the specifications of the whole of these were printed between 1853 and 1858. There were a few of earlier date, between 1617 and 1711, but none in so complete a form as to render them worth printing. The whole fill many hundred quarto volumes, with the lithographed illustrations bound in separate folio volumes. The expense of the whole undertaking—for paper, printing, and lithographing—was £92.000; the number of copies printed was small; but any single specification can be reprinted if a demand for it should arise. The next work was to utilize this immense collection by a thorough system of indexing. Three indexes were prepared— Chronological, Alphabetical (according to the names of the inventors), and Subject-matter. Arrangements were at the same time made for printing and indexing the specifications of all patents obtained under the new law (1852); and this has been done year by year. (The total number of patents from 1617 to 1878 exceeded 100,000.) These specifications are sold to the public at the price of paper and print, varying from 1-Jd, to about 4s., averaging about 8d. each. The printing and publishing are completed within three weeks of the time when each final specification reaches the hands of the superintendent. Any copy of any of these, if stamped and certified, is received in any court of law or equity in the kingdom, in evidence of the patent to which it relates, without the necessity of producing the original document itself.

There are generally over 4000 petitions for new patents every year; about 800 of the petitioners usually fail to give notice of their intention to proceed, and 200 more fall away before the actual sealing of the patent; so that, roughly speaking, about 3000 specifications of patents are added to the list every year. Of this number, not more than 500 to 600 over-live three years. In 1878, 5343 applications for patents were made; but 1905 of these lapsed during the year, for various reasons. The old and new specifications from 1711 to 1878, amounting to 110,334, have all been printed and published. These works are acquiring ever-increasing value as standards of reference for intending patentees. To render the new specifications equally available with those of older date, three indexes are prepared for each year’s collection, of the kinds already described. There has also been prepared a reference index to the whole series. In 1871, a new plan was adopted, of publishing weekly abridgments of the specifications of new patents : dispensing with any further alphabetical and subject-matter indexes. Besides this, abridgments have been drawn up of most of the specifications, and will be eventually of all: setting forth, in a few words, the general nature of the invention. These abridgments are collected into 12mo volumes, one or more to each class of subjects; and the volumes are sold at 6d. to 10s. each, according to their bulk. At the end of 1878, there were 115 volumes of these useful works, relating to no less than 94 groups or classes of abridgments. By reference to one of these handy volumes, or to the Subject-matter index, an inventor can see whether any person lias preceded him in the particular subject for which he desires a patent.

The Library and Reading-room.—Special arrangements are made to render the specifications, and all that relates to them, as avail-able as possible to the public. Complete sets of the printed specifications, indexes, &c., have been presented to universities, government offices, provincial towns, colonies, and foreign governments; and partial sets to 300 mechanics’ institutes and scientific and literary societies. A complete set comprised in 1880 above 3600 volumes, from folio to 12mo, and cost no less than £3500 for paper, printing, and lithographing; about 160 of these complete sets have been presented. At the head office in Southampton Buildings, a Reading-room has been provided, open to such of the public as may wish to consult the specifications at their leisure. But besides this, the commissioners have gradually become possessed of a large and valuable collection of scientific and technical books and periodicals, to which additions are every year made by purchase. A new Library and Reading-room, occupying the upper part of the old building, has been constructed at a cost of £15,000, and was finished and opened in 1867. All the scientific and technical works of the Library of 80,000 volumes, as well as the specifications of the patents, may here be consulted.

The Museum.—The commissioners having come into possession, by gift and otherwise, of several models illustrating patented inventions, had no place of their own to deposit them for preservation and exhibition. But an arrangement was made with the authorities at South Kensington for the reception of these models; and. greatly augmented by specimens, drawings, diagrams, and portraits, the Patent Museum now occupies a site adjacent to the South Kensington Museum.

The commissioners have for many years sought permission to erect a large and handsome building to accommodate the whole of their departments—offices, Library, Reading-room, and Museum. They possess the pecuniary means, but lack the authority. Their receipts exceed £100,000 a year, in the form of fees from patentees; and after a very liberal expenditure for salaries, superannuation allowances, editing, compiling, printing, purchase of books and periodicals, &c., there is a considerable surplus. A clause in the act of 1852 prevents them from buying land and erecting buildings without the consent of the Treasury. One suggestion made by the commissioners is for permission to build a new street to be formed from the Horse Guards to the Thames Embankment; and another is, that the new building should be on the Embankment itself, a still more prominent site.