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1911. NEW ZEALAND.

PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE MARKS. TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE REGISTRAR.

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly pursuant to Section ISO of the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act, 1908.

I have the honour, in compliance with the requirements of the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act, to submit my report on the proceedings thereunder during the past year. The total number of applications received in respect of patents, designs, and trade marks was 2,695, an increase of 236 on the total for 1909, and a considerable advance in the number for any other year. The revenue amounted to £6,314 9s. lid., £299 17s. 9d. more than in 1909; and the expenditure to ,£2,669 9s. 5d., £153 ss. lid. less than in that year. The increase in the receipts over the expenditure in 1910 as compared with 1909 was therefore £453 3s. Bd.; and, as the latter year showed an increase of £543 14s. 2d. over the preceding twelve months, the amount received in excess of that expended was greater last year by £996 17s. 10s. than it was in 1908. The balance for the year, £3,645 os. 6d., brings the total surplus of the office since the commencement of the Act on the Ist January, 1890, up to £51,288 17s. Id. According to the latest figures available the expenditure in New Zealand is 42 per cent, of the revenue, in the United Kingdom 68 per cent., and in the United States of America, where most of the revenue is devoted to fostering invention, 87 per cent. While the facilities afforded inventors have been considerably extended, they are still somewhat deficient in certain respects, and, in order to enable greater benefit to be derived from our patent laws, I beg to again recommend : — (1.) That copies of specifications and drawings be printed and supplied to the public at the lowest possible price.—At present the cost of copies debars them from being freely procured, and the publicity that should be given to inventions is thus restricted. If copies were sold at a small cost inventors would be enabled to readily ascertain and effect improvements in existing appliances, and I submit that, if it is considered the time has not yet arrived for the printing of all specifications, at least those should be done relating to our principal industries and in which the public are chiefly interested. (2.) That steps be taken to enable inventions patented in other countries to be known here.— To attain success inventors must kno-v the latest advances on the subject in which they are engaged, not only in this but in other countries. Printed copies of the specifications and drawings of Great Britain, Australia, United States, Canada, and most European countries can be obtained for a small amount, and should as far as possible be kept at as many libraries throughout the country as can afford the space for them. (3.) Ihat further examination be made into novelty.—This office is not required by law to inquire into the novelty of inventions sought to be patented, and has no special staff for the purpose. It is, I think, highly desirable that the investigation undertaken in this direction should be extended, and provision made for more fully ascertaining whether such inventions are new. (4.) That the accommodation be increased. —The premises at present occupied by the office are inadequate, and, as a matter of fact, afford only about the same space as those vacated over ten years ago, when the business was half what it now is. Apart from the inconvenience to the public and staff, the restricted space makes the proper arrangement of papers and books a matter of much difficulty, and the lack of safe accommodation endangers a large number of documents which should be guarded from loss or destruction.

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