PREFACE.

THIS book was originally designed to meet the requirements of inventors and authors, by furnishing them, in a condensed and convenient form, with all the information they might require as to the expenses, the rights, the privileges and obligations of patents and copyrights, and of the means to be employed to obtain them. But it is hoped also that the work will be found useful to patent agents and publishers, and likewise to solicitors and others having to deal with matters with which patent and copyright questions are involved.

The author in offering his volume to the public ventures to affirm that no pains have been spared to render it correct and complete, and that it embraces, within moderate limits and at a reasonable price, a larger amount of information on the subjects in question than any other work extant. He is much indebted to the late Mr. Godson's able and well known work on patents.

But it has, to a considerable extent, become obsolete through lapse of time, and this defect is not satisfactorily supplied by Messrs. Burke, in their modern edition of the work, since they have reprinted the original in extenso, giving the numerous alterations and additions to the law and practice, as they existed in Mr. Godson's time, in the form of supplements, which renders it inconvenient as a book of reference. The size and price also of the work place it beyond the reach of many persons to whom this epitome will be found available.

With regard to the colonial and foreign patent laws, he has freely availed himself of the Commissioners of Patents' Journal, in which most of these laws have been published at length. The American law is an analysis of the instructions issued by Mr. Charles Mason, the able Commissioner of the United States' Patent Office, and for the new Sardinian law he is indebted to the Paris Journal des Mines.

He cannot allow this little work to go to the press without offering his acknowledgments to the officers of the Patent Office, for the courteous and unremitting attention received whenever he had occasion to make use of the valuable library of that Institution. Being personally unknown there, he was the more pleased with the kindness with which he was treated, since he is thus enabled to conclude that the public generally are also partakers of the same hospitable welcome.

As changes are frequently taking place in the laws of patents and copyrights here and abroad, the author looks forward to the necessity for frequent editions of the book in order to keep on a level with the times; he will consequently feel most thankful for any advice or information calculated to render the work more perfect.

November 1st, 1860.

J. F.