1870: 33 & 34 Victoria c.27: An Act for the Protection of Inventions exhibited at International Exhibitions in the United Kingdom.

[14th July 1870.]

WHEREAS it is expedient that such protection as is herein-after mentioned should be afforded to persons desirous of exhibiting new inventions at exhibitions to be held in the United Kingdom:

Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows; (that is to say,)

[Short title.]

1. This Act may be cited as “The Protection of Inventions Act, 1870.”

[Exhibition of new inventions not to prejudice patent rights.]

2. The exhibition of any new invention at any international exhibition shall not, nor shall the publication during the period of the holding of such exhibition of any description of such invention, nor shall the user of such invention for the purposes of such exhibition, and within the place where the same may be held, nor shall the user of such invention elsewhere by any person without the privity and consent of the true and first inventor thereof, prejudice the right of the exhibitor thereof, he being the true and first inventor, within six months from the time of the opening of such exhibition, to leave at the office of the Commissioners of Patents a petition for the grant of letters patent for such invention and the declaration accompanying the same, and a provisional specification or a complete specification thereof, under The Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852, and the Acts amending the same, or to obtain provisional protection or letters patent for such invention in pursuance of those Acts, nor invalidate any letters patent which may be granted for such invention upon any such petition as aforesaid.

[Exhibition of designs not to prejudice right to registration.]

3. The exhibition at any international exhibition of any new design capable of being registered provisionally under “The Designs Act, 1850,” or of any article to which such design is applied, shall not, nor shall the publication during the period of the holding of such exhibition of any description of such design, prejudice the right of any person to register, provisionally or otherwise, such design, or invalidate any provisional or other registration which may be granted for such design.

[Application of Act to international exhibitions in general.]

4. The term “international exhibition” shall mean in this Act the Workmen’s International Exhibition to be held in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy; also any of the annual international exhibitions of select works of fine and industrial art and scientific inventions to be held in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one and succeeding years, under the direction of Her Majesty’s Commissioners for the Exhibition of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one; also any international exhibition which the Board of Trade may, upon the application of any persons desirous of holding such exhibition, certify to be in their judgment calculated to promote British art or industry, and to prove beneficial to the mercantile or industrious classes of Her Majesty’s subjects.

Source: Public General Statutes, 1870.