THE CYANIDE PATENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2250, 15 April 1897, Page 18

THE CYANIDE PATENT.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, April 11.

Mr Button is down from Auckland in connection with the claim of the Cyanide Company to get their patent amended. Unless they can manage this they cannot hope to exact the heavy royalties they have hitherto been getting in New Zealand. The matter was before the Rcgistiar of Patents some time ago, and Mr Button was successful iv resioting the proposed amendment. The company, however, has since appealed to the Supreme Court, and the case i 3 set down for Monday. Mr Button is still sanguine that he will be successful. The company, however, may, in the event of the decision ftill being against them, take the matter to the Privy Council. The question is a very important one in its bearing on the mining industry in this colony. April 12. A case interesting to the mining industry of the colony began at the Supreme Court to-day. This was an appeal by the Cassel Gold Extraction Company (Limited) against the decision of the. Registrar of Patents refusing to amend the comiiatiy's patent specification on the ground that it contaiced ouly a claim for the general

use of cyanide, and that the amendment proposed iv effeci to tucn thii general use into a special one. The" grounds of appeal were that the Attorney- general hrd uo status giving him a right to objecb to the amendment ; that the registrar in r rriving at his decision erroneously treated the existing letters patent as invalid ; that the registrar in his decision erroneously held that tho application would substantially enlarge the scope of the letters patent ; that the decision of tha registrar was against the weight of evidence adduced, and otherwise erroneous in point of law. The case is likely to occupy some days.