H.—lo

III

Reference is also made by the Comptroller to the number of applications for dynamo, electric, and gas lamps, and for the manufacture and purification of gas, due to the keenness of the competition between gas and electricity as illuminants. There has, however, been no increase in the applications on these subjects in the colony during the year. International Convention. An increase is shown in the number of applications under the Convention, twenty-six being received in 1905 as compared with seventeen in 1904. The advantages of the Convention do not yet appear to be generally realised, and inventors of other countries by applying here in the ordinary way frequently run the risk of having their patents invalidated through the prior receipt in the colony of their English specifications. The promptness with which the printed copies of these specifications are sent out and rendered accessible to the public makes it necessary for the English inventor, in order to obtain a valid patent in the colony, to either avail himself of the provisions of the Convention or to send his application to this office before or immediately after the acceptance of the complete specification in England. Novelty. Compared with other countries, New Zealand has a very high number of applications for patents in proportion to the population. This is due in a great measure to the general prosperity and enterprise of the people in the colony, and to the low fees and simple procedure which enable protection to be obtained with little trouble and at small cost. These facilities, while unquestionably of great value in affording ready protection to any one, naturally lead to a number of ill-considered applications being lodged. A well-known authority writing on the English practice says : " The fatal facility with which any person fired by some crude idea can enter a post-office, buy a form, scribble down his inspiration, and incontinently post the whole to the Comptroller, is by no means an unmixed benefit, and has its result in a flood of rubbish poured into the Patent Office every year. Probably a very large proportion of the applications thus made would never have been filed if they had been submitted in the first instance to the calmer judgment of an expeiienced and properly trained patent agent or solicitor." This is no doubt very true, and inventors would, in my opinion, be well advised in inquiring closely into the novelty and prospects of success of their inventions before applying to patent them here, and more particularly before incurring the heavy cost of protection abroad. It should, I think, be more generally recognised that one of the chief duties of a patent agent is to advise applicants whether their inventions a:ce practicable, to search and ascertain whether they are new, and to endeavour to dissuade them from trying to protect inventions not possessing a substantial degree of novelty and utility. Besides examining all applications, and rejecting those which on the face of them are for nothing new and patentable, the office in many cases makes a search among prior New Zealand and English specifications, and this practice has led to the refusal of further applications and the insertion in others of disclaimers and amendments which have the effect of reducing the scope of the claims. It cannot, however, be too strongly impressed on inventors that the Patent Office is not required by law to inquire into the novelty of inventions sought to be protected, and that, even with a much larger staff for the purpose, a partial search only would be possible. Facilities are now placed in the way of inventors in the larger towns for searching a number of specifications, and it is hoped that this will lead to a reduction in the number of applications for old inventions. The following table shows the number of applications received in and sent from various countries for which the figures are available for 1904 : —

Countries in which Applications mad' Commies//u»t wliioh Applications made. TT . ... , G immonweaHh United Kingdom. ; of Austra i ia . United States of America. New Zealand. United States of America 3,591 1,095 2,807 114 255 6 45 132 155 64 116 20,015 127 230 13 31 4 10 27,539 331 910 22 87 4 25 48 412 10 14 937 53 100 5 10 2 3 France Germany Italy... Switzerland Japan New South Wales Victoria Canada India South Africa ... United Kingdom New Zealand ... 308 752 17 1 23 233 216 65 160 8 5 110 954