OF- PATENT LAW. WITH AN APPENDIX UPON THE SALE OF PATENTS. BY WILLIAM EDGAR SIMONDS, Counsellor in Patent Causes. HARTFORD: PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. AND BY GEO. W. SMITH & COMPANY, 95 NASSAU ST., NEW YORK. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by WILLIAM EDGAR SIMONDS, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, Smith, Fowler & Miller, PREFACE. C USTOM permits a writer, in his Preface, to project. himself toward his readers in the use of the personal pronoun of the first person. Of that privilege I will avail myself for a little. Professional experience in the procuring of letters-patent for inventions, and in the conduct of litigation based upon them, has made me to know, that the great majority of inventors, and of other persons interested in patents, eagerly desire reliable information as to their rights and duties under the law, and as to all questions affecting patents. The books designed for the use of that part of the legal profession devoted to patent practice are too costly to be practically within the reach of the profession in general, much less within the ordinary means of inventors and patentees. Not only this, but they are written in a vernacular fully understood by lawyers only; and, being devoted to a subject which a truly learned judge has styled "the metaphysics of the law," their language is doubly puzzling to a layman. This book of mine is, obviously, not intended as an exhaustive treatise upon patent law, but as a statement and summary of the principles of the law; and it has been prepared with a careful remembrance of the fact, that a book may be as valuable for what it does not contain as for what it does. The subject admits of endless padding; but I have aimed to steer clear of that error. |