JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS tion to the Comptroller, and this application may be accompanied either by a provisional or a complete specification. Usually a provisional specification is filed because this gives the applicant a period of one year in which to perfect his invention before the complete specification is filed. The provisional specification should describe the invention, and in view of certain provisions of the new Act to which I will refer later, it is advisable to describe the inven- tion in as great detail as possible, while at the same time foreshadowing the future work which the inventor hopes he will be able to carry out before the complete specification is filed. In other words, there is no real danger in drafting some parts of the provisional specification in fairly wide terms, provided, of course, that there is also some more detailed description to which the inventor may retreat if he finds that it is impracticable in the complete specification to claim the invention widely, either because the wider _ aspects of the invention are already known or because the wide state- ment includes embodiments which are not useful, or possibly because time has not permitted the inventor to investigate the matter sufficiently to give an adequate description which will support the wide statement. When the complete specification is filed it is necessary to describe 'the best method known to the inventor of carrying the invention into effect. The amount of detail to be given will necessarily depend upon the circumstances of the case, 218 because clearly it is unnecessary to describe in great detail matters which are well known to all workers in the field that is to say, matters of common general knowledge. Nevertheless, the description should always be sufficiently full to enable a person who is skilled in the art concerned to carry the invention into effect without the use of the inven- tive faculty. Again, the amount of description required will depend upon the scope of the invention, and this scope will be determined by what are known as the claims. The claims are a very important part of the specification and will be found at the end of the complete specifica- tion. They are a concise statement of the ambit of the monopoly claimed by the Applicant and require care and consideration in drafting, be- cause anything falling outside the claims is not protected by the patent. Thus, the claims should be wide enough to cover the invention, but not so wide as to be invalid for any reason. It is usual to insert a series of claims, some being of a more limited character, in order to provide several lines of defence should the wider claims be invalid for any reason. After the complete specification has been filed it is considered by one of the examiners of the Patent Office, who makes a search in British specifications published during the past fifty years and who, if he so desires, may also bring to the notice of the applicant other material published in the United Kingdom before the date of the application.

PATENTS AND THE :71 :iThe examiner in making his report will draw the attention of the appli- cant to those documents which his search has disclosed which appear to him to affect the novelty of the claims. The examiner also makes a search to determine whether there are any prior applications which, although not published at the date of the application which is being examined, are patents of prior date, and these are cited on the ground which is known as "prior claiming." In the case of prior claiming we are only concerned with a conflict of claim, and provided that the exam- iner is satisfied that the claims are distinct he will withdraw his objec- tion. Similar considerations apply to prior publications referred to by the examiner, although he may re- quire the applicant to refer in his specification to the prior documents in order that the public may be made aware of the place of the applicant's invention in relation to what is already knowns. A N•w Pr•ov•s•oN There is also a new provision in the Patents Act, 1949, in Section 9, whereby the examiner may require reference to an earlier patent which is still in force if he is of the opinion that the applicant's invention cannot be carried out without substantial risk $f infringement of the claims of the earlier patent. This is designed to be a warning to any member of the public who may contemplate acquiring the patent or taking a licence under it. The examiner also may raise objections on various COSMETIC INDUSTRY other grounds, the most important of which is insufficient or unfair description. In this connection the examiner will draw attention to any passage which appears to him to be not clear, and he may also object that the claims are not fairly based on the description, that is to say, that the applicant is trying to claim more than he has invented. If the applicant or his agent and the examiner are unable to agree, then a hearing takes place before one of the senior officials of the Patent Office, who will give a decision, in writing if required, and this decision is subject to appeal to the Patents Appeal Tribunal, which consists of a judge with special experience in patent and other industrial property matters. After the examiner's objections, if any, have been removed, the applica- tion is accepted and a notification of that fact is inserted in the Official Journal of Patents. The next step is for the specification to be printed, and thereafter the application re- mains open to opposition by any interested party for a period of three months. GRou•r)s oF OPPOSiTiON There are various grounds of opposition, the most important of which are prior publication, prior claiming, insufficient or unfair de- scription, and what is generally know2• as 'qack of subject-matter." This last-mentioned ground of opposi- tion was introduced by the 1949 Act and is not open to the examiner during examination proceedings. Briefly, this ground of opposition 219