The second trial was raised to know if, when a working man is only executing the orders given to him by another party, with the indications and in the interest of this last, the working man may be reputed the inventor, and if the results of his labour may have the character of an invention, so that he may claim [revendicate] its ownership by a Patent. The Court decided for the negative. We pass four other suits running on the interpretation of this first article, that seems so innocent, so inoffensive, and come to the eleventh trial. In conferring by Article I., under the conditions that it determines, on the author of new discoveries or inventions the right of working them exclusively for his own benefit, did the law intend to deprive of all rights those who were using the same means of fabrication prior to the delivery of the Patents? The question was, in other terms, to know whether the Patent is good and legal against every one except against the party who, having worked it for a certain period anterior to the granting of the Patent, might be kept in possession of his industry? On March 30, 1849, the Court of Cassation decided for the affirmative in the case of “Witz Meunier _versus_ Godefroy Muller.” You fancy, perhaps, that the affair is all right and settled; the Court of Cassation has spoken, and every inventor who will not have taken a Patent may work out his invention without fear of prosecution from a patentee coming long after. You are greatly mistaken. You do not know how keen, and ardent, and clever, and anxious are the seekers of Patents. Previously to that the Court Royal of Paris had declared in May, 1847, in the case of “Lejeune _versus_ Parvilley,” that the Patent can be put in force against the manufacturer working the invention before it was patented, if he has not published it before the patentee, and if the patentee is the first who has introduced it in commerce. But in 1847 the Court Royal of Paris did not know the opinion given in 1849 by the Court of Cassation. We see how unsafe are the things of this world. Say if you can ever be sure of holding and knowing the truth. On August 19, 1853, the same question was brought again before the Court of Cassation in the case of “Thomas Laurent _versus_ Riant,” and the Court decided that the Patent can be put in force against whoever possessed the invention before it was patented. There is at Lyons a manufacturer who for a great many years fabricated a dye for which he has not taken a Patent, but the secret of which he carefully keeps to himself. If, by some manœuvring, by some doubtfully moral means, an industrialist—as there are too many amongst the patentees—contrived to worm out this secret, and got a legal Patent, he could work the discovery and oblige the Lyonese manufacturer to cease all productions of the same kind. Would it not be an admirable example of legality?