PATENTS.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXII, Issue 3666, 22 February 1904, Page 2

PATENTS.

(to the editor). Sir, —It will doubtless be of interest to a large proportion of your readers, and especially to that portion who are interested in inventions, to learn that it is now possible to file applications for patents for inventions to cover the whole Australian Commonwealth. Up to the present it has been necessary, in order to fully protect au invention in Australia, to make separate applications in each of the six States composing the Commonwealth, with a consequent heavy monetary outlay. A Patent Act to provide for the granting of patents was passed last year, and this Act is to come into force on a date to be determined and proclaimed. Section 29 of the Act, however, provides for the filing of patent applications as soon as a Commissioner of Patents has been appointed, such applications being received by the Commissioner and given priority in the order of their filing, although they will not be taken up for examination, nor will patents be issued upon them until after the Act comes into force. All patents upon application so filed will bear date as of the date of commencement of tbe Act. The section also provides that all applications filed under it shall have the like effect as if lodged after the commencement of the Act, thus ensuring that any publication or sale of the invention that might take place between tbe filing of the application and the date of the patent shall not invalidate the patent afterwards sustained. A Commission of Patents has now been appointed in the person of Mr C. Townsend, late Registrar of Patents in Queensland, who has issued the necessary regulations to bring the section into force. New Zealand inventors may thus take advantage of the provisions and protect their inventions in Australia without delay, the cost of such applications being about onefourth of tbe charges previously made for the six States.—l am, etc., Henry Hushes Wellington, February IBth.