The 20th century

An important milestone in the development of the British patent system was the Act of 1902, which introduced a limited investigation into the novelty of the invention before granting a patent. This required patent examiners to perform a search through United Kingdom specifications published within 50 years of the date of the application. Even with this restricted search, a vast amount of preparatory work was involved and an additional 190 examiners assisted the existing staff of 70 examiners.

By 1905, to enable searching, patent specifications from 1855 to 1900 had been abridged and classified in 1,022 volumes arranged in 146 classes according to subject. By 1907, the abridgement volumes extended back to the first patent to have a number:

• Patent No. 1 of 1617 granted to Rathburn & Burges for "Engraving and Printing Maps, Plans &c".

The legislation in force at present is the 1977 Patents Act. This was the most radical piece of patents legislation for nearly 100 years. The Act sets out to ensure that the patent system is well suited to the needs of modern industry, sufficiently flexible to accommodate future changes in technology and adapted to operate in an international context.