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number of examiners and patent applications are very large, the examiners have the opportunity to specialize in limited fields. This is not possible in New Zealand, and not probable in the foreseeable future. 79. With all these factors taken into consideration we think that, so far as New Zealand is concerned, the basis for examination of applications should be substantially as follows : that regulation 13a (Statutory Regulations 1947/136) should be repealed and the Commissioner should be given, in lieu of the powers conferred by it, a power similar to that given in Canada. Regulation 13a now provides as follows : 13a. (1) Every applicant for the grant of a patent shall inform the Commissioner in writing whether to his knowledge a patent for the same or a similar invention has been applied for in Great Britain, Australia, the United States of America, and any other countries which the Commissioner may in any case nominate, and shall upon request supply to the Commissioner such further information as the Commissioner may require in respect of any application so made. (2) For the purposes of this regulation, an applicant for the grant of a patent in New Zealand shall be deemed to have knowledge of an application elsewhere than in New Zealand for a patent for the same or a similar invention if that application is made by the person who is the applicant in New Zealand, or by a person through whom he derives his title to apply, or by a person who derives his title to apply through the person who is the applicant in New Zealand. In our opinion, this regulation is in many respects unnecessary, and calls for a considerable amount of unnecessary work on the part of both the Patent Office and the applicant. 80. The adoption of a system somewhat similar to that obtaining in Canada would have the following result. In the cases of New Zealand applications where corresponding or substantially corresponding applications have been filed either in the United States, Canada, Australia, or Great Britain, the Commissioner would have the power, when he considers it desirable or necessary, to call upon the applicant to provide full information as to the prior art cited during the course of examination of the corresponding applications in the countries stated, provided that that prior art was, in fact, available as a prior publication in New Zealand. The Commissioner would then have the power, if the applicant has not already amended his specification to avoid such prior art, to cite such art as part of the official examination in New Zealand. If this were done, it would, in our opinion, be a very material step forward to ensure that patents in New Zealand will not be granted in respect of any alleged inventions which, in fact, were old as forming part of the readily available art of the countries specifically mentioned. 81. Until recently full copies of the United States specifications were not received in New Zealand, the Patent Office Library receiving only abridgments thereof. In many cases these abridgments do not contain information sufficient to enable them to be cited as complete anticipations of full specifications describing in detail the same invention, but recently the Patent Office has altered its practice and has taken the further advanced step of obtaining full copies of United States specifications. The same course, we understand, applies in connection with Canadian specifications, which are now being received in printed form. 82. The result is that if full copies of the printed specifications from Great Britain, United States, Canada, and Australia are received in New Zealand, and if the Commissioner in appropriate cases exercises the authority which we have suggested he should have vested in him, a very full examination can be made with relatively little work on the part of the examiners. Their work, over and above their search of published New Zealand specifications, will merely consist in ascertaining how much of the particular art cited by the examiners in the countries mentioned has received prior publication in New Zealand and ensuring that the applicant makes such amendments in his specification and claims as are sufficient to avoid the matter so cited. 83. Such procedure would, at least in the vast majority of cases, render unnecessary any independent examination of the art in those countries by the examiners in New Zealand. We think that an independent examination in every case would be beyond the capacity of the relatively small number of examiners. As regards those countries in which no .corresponding application has been filed, the examiners in New Zealand could

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