Abstract
January 1, 1905.—Previous to 1905 no question as to the novelty of an invention for which a patent was being sought was raised by the British patent office, but under the provisions of the Patents Act, 1902 (2 Edw. 7, cap. 34), which came into force on Jan. 1, 1905, an official search for novelty was instituted; the examination, however, extending only to completed British patent specifications on applications not more than fifty years old. This limited search has not been altered by later Acts and is still the practice of the office, some 21,000 specifications being so examined each year.
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Calendar of Patent Records. Nature 123, 33 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/123033a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/123033a0