AN UNEXPLOUTED PATENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2896, 15 September 1909, Page 4

AN UNEXPLOUTED PATENT.

APPLICATION FO& EXTENSION. In the Supreme Com* on the 10th, before Mr Justice Williams an application was made by Frank William Petre, of Dunedin engineer, and Alexander Arthur Scully, of Christchurch. police constable, for an extension of the term of the letters patent of an automatic instructor on railway locomotives. Mr D. Ramsay appeared in support of the application, and Mr P. S. K. Macassey on behalf of the Soli-citor-general. On January 23, 1896, letters patent were Planted to the petitioners for an automatic instiuctor — a machine to be used for the purpose of registering instructions to be Kiveii, to the driver, or any other person, on a locomotive railway train, and automatically delivering "the same when necessary ; also to indicate at any time the exact position of a locomotive in a fog or darkness. The object of the invention was to minimise the risk of accidents and to add to the safety of traffic. The letters patent now in existence will expire next January. F. W. Petre gave evidence explaining in detail the mechanism of the invention. The idea was to place the contrivance in the cab of an engine and connect it with the driving wheel. The need of the machine was suggested by the narrow escape from a collision at Deborah Bay some ypars ago through the forgetting of instructions to pull into the Mikiwaka sid- ' inp. Instructions for 90 miles could be put on the machine, the face of which was covered with erlasa. «<o that it fould not be tampered with. The cost of making a machine would be about £200, but if

machines were made in numbers the cost of each would not be a tenth of that sum. A model of the machine had never been made. It would be too costly. Some years ago witness had an interview with Mr Ronayne, general manager of the New Zealand Railways, who explained that the raifc way system of this country was not so complicated as to* render such an apparatus necessary, and that the tablet system had just been inaugurated. Mr Ronayne offered to lend the patentees an engine, but the expense of fitting it up would have been about £200. Witness had x approached the Great Eastern Railway Co., in England, but they required £8000 before the patent could be tested. The patentees had so far spent about £sfr on the invention; they had made no profit from it. They had not tried to float a company. "*"* Robert Wales, patent agent and consulting and mechanical engineer, said the invention seemed to him to be very ingenious, and likely- to be of use not only' for the purposes specified, but for other purposes. -- - _ • - Mr Macassey said he had no instructions to oppose the application. The question was whether the court .was -satisfied that the evidenoe disclosed sufficient utility in the patent. - " , . ■ His Honor said he should have liked the evidence of someone with special expert, knowledge. The machine might look all right to an outsider, and yet lack -some- " thing 1 , v ■ - Mr Ramsay said that railway men were not likely to come to the court to say. that this patent was better than the tablet . system now in use. If an extension of tha '■ term were granted the intention was that Mr Scully .should g<r Home with "/^the x machine to bring its merits before railwaycompanies. His Honor reserved' his judgment.