Robert Legget 🕊️

"Robert Ferguson Legget (September 29, 1904 – April 17, 1994) was a civil engineer, historian and non-fiction writer. He is internationally known for his contributions to engineering, geology and building research and standardization. He is credited with the establishment of co-operation among Canadian geotechnical engineers, geologists and pedologists. Life Legget was born in Liverpool, England, to Donald Thompson Legget and his wife Mary, both of whom were of Scottish descent. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby. He studied Civil Engineering and obtained a BEng (Hons) in 1925, and MEng 1927, from the University of Liverpool. He was initially employed as an engineer on the Lochaber Water Power Scheme in Scotland. He then emigrated to Canada in 1929, working for the Power Corporation of Canada.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary- robert-legget-1434265.html In 1936, he began teaching at Queen's University and the University of Toronto. He left teaching in 1947 to establish and serve as director of the National Research Council of Canada's new Division of Building Research. He held this position until he retired in 1969. Part of his legacy there was to establish a National Building Code that was respected throughout all of Canada, as opposed to the multitude of inconsistent local codes that were prevalent in 1947. Around 1945, after World War II, Leggat shaped the Environmental Conservation movement in Ontario by spearheading the Guelph Conference, the Ganaraska Study and the Conservation Authorities Act of Ontario (1946). He also was a founder, in 1962, of the Canadian Permafrost Conferences. He was the founding President of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Between 1959 and 1960, Legget was the chairman of the Engineering Geology Division of the Geological Society of America (GSA). He served as GSA president in 1966.Eckel, Edwin, 1982, GSA Memoir 155, The Geological Society of America — Life History of a Learned Society: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Memoir 155, 168 p., . In 1971 he received an honorary doctorate (DEng) from the University of Liverpool. After he retired, Dr. Legget wrote many books on the history of transportation in Canada including Ottawa Waterway: Gateway to A Continent, Rideau Waterway, Canals of Canada, The Seaway, and others, and he was a contributor to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Legget died in Ottawa at the age of 89. His wife, Mary Free, had died in 1984. They had one son. Philanthropy The Legget Endowment Fund is used by the Conservation Foundation on an annual basis for otherwise-unfunded current needs in the Rideau Valley. Publications *Editor of Soils in Canada *General editor of the Canadian Building Series, published by University of Toronto Press *Rideau Waterway (1955), (revised 1972) – history of the Rideau Canal *Ottawa Waterway, Gateway to a Continent (1975) *Canals of Canada (1975) *Glacial Till (1976) *Handbook of Geology in Civil Engineering (1983) with P.F. Karrow *Railways of Canada(1973) Honours, awards and legacy *Recognized by 13 honorary degrees including; ** 1963, an honorary Doctorate of Science by the University of Waterloo ** 1969, an honorary Doctorate of Science by the University of Western Ontario ** 1971, an honorary Doctorate of Engineering by the University of Liverpool ** 1972, an honorary Doctorate of Science by Concordia Universityconcordia.ca: "Honorary degree citation – Robert Ferguson Legget* By: J. Bordan, June 1972" *Honours ** made an honorary member of the American Underground Construction Association ** received the Royal Bank Award ** made an Honorary Life Member of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority ** the Canadian Geotechnical Society awards the R.F. Legget Medal as its highest honour ** 1967, invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada ** 1988, elected to the National Academy of Engineering ** 1989, promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada *Awards ** 1972, awarded the Logan Medal by the Geological Association of Canada ** 1974, awarded the Claire P. Holdredge Award by Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists ** 1977, awarded the William Smith Medal by the Geological Society of London * Archivesarchivescanada.ca: "CAIN No. 264059 TITLE: Robert F. Legget fonds – textual record, graphic material, objectcgs.ca: "LEGGET, Robert F. – MG 31, J 44 Finding Aid No. 1929 / Instrument de recherche no 1929" ReferencesExternal links *The Canadian Encyclopedia *Robert F. Legget Endowment Fund *Heritage of Engineering Geology Division, Geological Society of America 1940s to 1990 *Claire P. Holdredge Award *AUA Honorary Members *Canadian General Standards Board 1934–1999 *Earth Science in the City: A Reader *Rideau Waterway (Paperback) *University of Waterloo Honorary degrees *University of Western Ontario Honorary degrees * Category:1904 births Category:1994 deaths Category:Alumni of the University of Liverpool Category:Anglo-Scots Category:Canadian environmentalists Category:Canadian civil engineers Category:Canadian geologists Category:Canadian science writers Category:Canadian philanthropists Category:University of Toronto faculty Category:Companions of the Order of Canada Category:English emigrants to Canada Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Category:Fellows of the Engineering Institute of Canada Category:Writers from Ottawa Category:Canadian people of Scottish descent Category:Academics from Liverpool Category:Logan Medal recipients Category:20th-century philanthropists Category:Presidents of the Geological Society of America Category:20th-century geologists "

History of patent law 🕊️

"The history of patents and patent law is generally considered to have started with the Venetian Statute of 1474.Helmut Schippel: Die Anfänge des Erfinderschutzes in Venedig, in: Uta Lindgren (Hrsg.): Europäische Technik im Mittelalter. 800 bis 1400. Tradition und Innovation, 4. Aufl., Berlin 2001, S.539-550 Early precedents There is some evidence that some form of patent rights was recognized in Ancient Greece. In 500 BCE, in the Greek city of Sybaris (located in what is now southern Italy), "encouragement was held out to all who should discover any new refinement in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent for the space of a year."Charles Anthon, A Classical Dictionary: Containing An Account of the Principal Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors, And Intended To Elucidate All The Important Points Connected With The Geography, History, Biography, Mythology, And Fine Arts Of The Greeks And Romans Together With An Account Of Coins, Weights, And Measures, With Tabular Values Of The Same, Harper & Bros, 1841, page 1273. Athenaeus, writing in the third century CE, cites Phylarchus in saying that in Sybaris exclusive rights were granted for one year to creators of unique culinary dishes.Phylarchus of Naucratis, "The Deipnosophists, or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus", Translated from Ancient Greek by H.Bohn 12:20, p.835 In England, grants in the form of letters patent were issued by the sovereign to inventors who petitioned and were approved: a grant of 1331 to John Kempe and his Company is the earliest authenticated instance of a royal grant made with the avowed purpose of instructing the English in a new industry.Terrell on Patents, 8th edition edited by J R Jones, London (Sweet & Maxwell) 1934.E Wyndham Hulme, The History of the Patent System under the Prerogative and at Common Law, Law Quarterly Review, vol.46 (1896), pp.141-154. These letters patent provided the recipient with a monopoly to produce particular goods or provide particular services. Another early example of such letters patent was a grant by Henry VI in 1449 to John of Utynam, a Flemish man, for a twenty-year monopoly for his invention. The first Italian patent was awarded by the Republic of Florence in 1421.Terence Kealey, The Economic Laws of Scientific Research, St. Martin's Press, 1996Gregory A Stobbs, Software Patents, Aspen Publishers, 2000, , page 3. The Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi received a three-year patent for a barge with hoisting gear, that carried marble along the Arno River in 1421.Christine MacLeod, Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660-1800, Cambridge University Press, 2002, , , page 11. Development of the modern patent system Patents were systematically granted in Venice as of 1450, where they issued a decree by which new and inventive devices had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain legal protection against potential infringers. The period of protection was 10 years. These were mostly in the field of glass making. As Venetians emigrated, they sought similar patent protection in their new homes. This led to the diffusion of patent systems to other countries.M. Frumkin, "The Origin of Patents", Journal of the Patent Office Society, March 1945, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, pp 143 et Seq. The Venetian Patent Statute, issued by the Senate of Venice in 1474, and one of the earliest patent systems in the world. King Henry II of France introduced the concept of publishing the description of an invention in a patent in 1555. The first patent "specification" was to inventor Abel Foullon for "Usaige & Description de l'holmetre", (a type of rangefinder.) Publication was delayed until after the patent expired in 1561. Patents were granted by the monarchy and by other institutions like the "Maison du Roi" and the Parliament of Paris. The novelty of the invention was examined by the French Academy of Sciences.Nowotarski, Bakos, “A Short History of Private Patent Examination”, Insurance IP Bulletin Oct. 2009 Digests were published irregularly starting in 1729 with delays of up to 60 years. Examinations were generally done in secret with no requirement to publish a description of the invention. Actual use of the invention was deemed adequate disclosure to the public.Frank D. Prager, “Proposals for the Patent Act of 1790", Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society, March 1954, vol XXXVI, No. 3, pp 157 et Seq., citing J. Isore in Revue Historique de Droit Francais, 1937 pp. 117 et Seq. The English patent system evolved from its early medieval origins into the first modern patent system that recognised intellectual property in order to stimulate invention; this was the crucial legal foundation upon which the Industrial Revolution could emerge and flourish.; By the 16th century, the English Crown would habitually grant letters patent for monopolies to favoured persons (or people who were prepared to pay for them). Blackstone (same reference) also explains how "letters patent" (Latin literae patentes, "letters that lie open") were so called because the seal hung from the foot of the document: they were addressed "To all to whom these presents shall come" and could be read without breaking the seal, as opposed to "letters close", addressed to a particular person who had to break the seal to read them. This power was used to raise money for the Crown, and was widely abused, as the Crown granted patents in respect of all sorts of common goods (salt, for example). Consequently, the Court began to limit the circumstances in which they could be granted. After public outcry, James I of England was forced to revoke all existing monopolies and declare that they were only to be used for "projects of new invention". This was incorporated into the 1624 Statute of Monopolies in which Parliament restricted the Crown's power explicitly so that the King could only issue letters patent to the inventors or introducers of original inventions for a fixed number of years. It also voided all existing monopolies and dispensations with the exception of: :...the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures within this realm to the true and first inventor and inventors of such manufactures which others at the time of making such letters patent and grants shall not use... The Statute became the foundation for later developments in patent law in England and elsewhere. James Puckle's 1718 early autocannon was one of the first inventions required to provide a specification for a patent. Important developments in patent law emerged during the 18th century through a slow process of judicial interpretation of the law. During the reign of Queen Anne, patent applications were required to supply a complete specification of the principles of operation of the invention for public access. Patenting medicines was particular popular in the mid-eighteenth century and then declined.Alan Mackintosh, Authority and Ownership: the growth and wilting of medicine patenting in Georgian England, British Journal for the History of Science 2016, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087416001114 Legal battles around the 1796 patent taken out by James Watt for his steam engine, established the principles that patents could be issued for improvements of an already existing machine and that ideas or principles without specific practical application could also legally be patented. This legal system became the foundation for patent law in countries with a common law heritage, including the United States, New Zealand and Australia. In the Thirteen Colonies, inventors could obtain patents through petition to a given colony's legislature. In 1641, Samuel Winslow was granted the first patent in North America by the Massachusetts General Court for a new process for making salt.James W. Cortada, "Rise of the knowledge worker, Volume 8 of Resources for the knowledge-based economy", Knowledge Reader Series, Butterworth- Heinemann, 1998, p. 141, , . Towards the end of the 18th century, and influenced by the philosophy of John Locke, the granting of patents began to be viewed as a form of intellectual property right, rather than simply the obtaining of economic privilege. A negative aspect of the patent law also emerged in this period - the abuse of patent privilege to monopolise the market and prevent improvement from other inventors. A notable example of this was the behaviour of Boulton & Watt in hounding their competitors such as Richard Trevithick through the courts, and preventing their improvements to the steam engine from being realised until their patent expired. Consolidation The modern French patent system was created during the Revolution in 1791. Patents were granted without examination since inventor's right was considered as a natural one. Patent costs were very high (from 500 to 1500 francs). Importation patents protected new devices coming from foreign countries. The patent law was revised in 1844 - patent cost was lowered and importation patents were abolished. The revision saw the introduction of the Breveté SGDG, which excluded any guarantees that the patented item would actually satisfy its specification. Samuel Hopkins in 1790. The Patent and Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution was proposed in 1787 by James Madison and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. In Federalist No. 43, Madison wrote, "The utility of the clause will scarcely be questioned. The copyright of authors has been solemnly adjudged, in Great Britain, to be a right of common law. The right to useful inventions seems with equal reason to belong to the inventors. The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of the individuals." The first Patent Act of the U.S. Congress was passed on April 10, 1790, titled "An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts."Online at Library of Congress: "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875": First Congress, Session II, chapter VII, 1790: "An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts". The first patent was granted on July 31, 1790 to Samuel Hopkins for a method of producing potash (potassium carbonate). The earliest law required that a working model of each invention be submitted with the application. Patent applications were examined to determine if an inventor was entitled to the grant of a patent. The requirement for a working model was eventually dropped. In 1793,Chap. XI. 1 Stat. 318 from A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875". Library of Congress, Law Library of Congress. Retrieved Sept. 4, 2009. the law was revised so that patents were granted automatically upon submission of the description. A separate Patent Office was created in 1802. The patent laws were again revised in 1836,Chap. CCCLVII. 5 Stat. 117 from "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 -1875". Library of Congress, Law Library of Congress. Retrieved Oct. 19, 2009. and the examination of patent applications was reinstituted. In 1870 Congress passed a law which mainly reorganized and reenacted existing law, but also made some important changes, such as giving the commissioner of patents the authority to draft rules and regulations for the Patent Office.Chap.CCXXX. 16 Stat. 198 from "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875". Library of Congress, Law Library of Congress. Retrieved Oct. 19, 2009. Criticism Under the influence of the ascendant economic philosophy of free trade economics in England, the patent law began to be criticised in the 1850s as obstructing research and benefiting the few at the expense of public good.Johns, Adrian: Piracy. The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. The University of Chicago Press, 2009, , p.247 The campaign against patenting expanded to target copyright too and, in the judgment of historian Adrian Johns, "remains to this day the strongest [campaign] ever undertaken against intellectual property", coming close to abolishing patents. Its most prominent activists - Isambard Kingdom Brunel, William Robert Grove, William Armstrong and Robert A. MacFie - were inventors and entrepreneurs, and it was also supported by radical laissez-faire economists (The Economist published anti-patent views), law scholars, scientists (who were concerned that patents were obstructing research) and manufacturers.Johns, Adrian: Piracy, p. 249, 267, 270 Johns summarizes some of their main arguments as follows:Johns, Adrian: Piracy, p. 273, citing W.R. Grove: Suggestions for Improvements in the Administration of the Patent Law, The Jurist n.s. 6 (January 28, 1860) 19-25 (online copy at Google Books), and B. Sherman, L. Bently: The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law (CUP 1999), 50-56 :[Patents] projected an artificial idol of the single inventor, radically denigrated the role of the intellectual commons, and blocked a path to this commons for other citizens — citizens who were all, on this account, potential inventors too. [...] Patentees were the equivalent of squatters on public land — or better, of uncouth market traders who planted their barrows in the middle of the highway and barred the way of the people. Similar debates took place during that time in other European countries such as France, Prussia, Switzerland and the Netherlands.Johns, Adrian: Piracy, p. 248 Based on the criticism of patents as state-granted monopolies inconsistent with free trade, the Netherlands abolished patents in 1869 (having established them in 1817), and did not reintroduce them until 1912.Chang, Ha-Joon. "Kicking Away the Ladder: How the Economic and Intellectual Histories of Capitalism Have Been Re-Written to Justify Neo-Liberal Capitalism". Post-Autistic Economics Review. 4 September 2002: Issue 15, Article 3. Retrieved on 8 October 2008. In Switzerland, criticism of patents delayed the introduction of patent laws until 1907. In England, despite much public debate, the system wasn't abolished - it was reformed with the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852. This simplified procedure for obtaining patents, reduced fees and created one office for the entire United Kingdom, instead of different systems for England and Wales and Scotland. In France as well, a similar controversy erupted in the 1860s and reforms were made.Gabriel Galvez-Behar, La République des inventeurs. Propriété et organisation de l'innovation en France, 1791-1922, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008, , . See also *History of copyright law *History of United States patent law *United States patent case law *Scire facias NotesReferences * Kenneth W. Dobyns, The Patent Office Pony; A History of the Early Patent Office, Sergeant Kirkland's Press 1994. * Howard B. Rockman, Intellectual Property law for Engineers and Scientists. * Bugbee, Bruce W. Genesis of American Patent and Copyright Law. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press (1967). * Christine MacLeod, Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English patent system, 1660–1800, Cambridge University Press. * Galvez-Behar, G. La République des inventeurs. Propriété et organisation de l'innovation en France, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008. External links ;First patents American *X Series : "Improvements in making pot ash and pearle ash" *1st Numerical : "Traction Wheel" *1st Design : Script font type *1st Reissued : "Grain Drill" ;Websites * An Economic History of Patent Institutions * French Patent History * Patents Research Guide (Australian) Patent law Category:Italian inventions Category:Patent law "

Unity of Oleksandr Omelchenko 🕊️

"Unity of Oleksandr Omelchenko (), prior to 2020 Unity () is a political party in Ukraine created in 1999 as a protest. The party is led by the former mayor of Kyiv Oleksandr Omelchenko although in early 2008, he temporally halted his party membership in favor of a membership of Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defence.Ukrainian Ministry of Justice Prior to the 2020 Kyiv local election the party changed its name to its current name. Logo of the party Unity History The party supported Yevhen Marchuk in the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election. Marchuk took only the 5th place out of 13, while gaining 8.13% of the vote in the first round. In 2001 a parliamentary faction called "Unity" was formed in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament), which included 21 MPs. =Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2002= At the 2002 legislative elections, it was part of an alliance (also called Unity) that won 1.1% of the popular vote and 4 out of 450 seats. The alliance consisted of: *Unity *Social Democratic Union (Social-Demokratyčnyj Sojuz) *Young Ukraine (Moloda Ukrajina) *Ukrainian Party of Justice - Union of Veterans, Handicapped, Chornobilians, Afghans (Ukrajins'ka Partija Spravedlivosti - Sojuz Veteraniv, Invalidiv, Čornobil'civ, Afganciv) =Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2006= During the 2006 parliamentary elections the party was part of an electoral alliance led by Yevhen Marchukofficial site news December 16, 2005 (Electoral Bloc "Yevhen Marchuk - "Unity") which didn't make it into parliament winning only 0,06% of the votes.korrespondent The alliance consisted of: *Unity *Party of Freedom *Party "Solidarity of Women of Ukraine" =Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2007= The party did not run during the 2007 elections but advised its voters to vote for Forward, Ukraine! or Peoples Self-defence.official site news August 4, 2007 (bad reference) =Since 2010, transformation into a local party= In the 2010 local elections Unity won 22 representatives in the Vinnytsia Oblast Council (regional parliaments of Vinnytsia Oblast). Results of the elections, preliminary data, on interactive maps by Ukrayinska Pravda (November 8, 2010) During the 2014 Kyiv local election Unity won 3.3% of the votes and 2 seats in the Kyiv City Council; including a seat for Omelchenko.Nine parties including Democratic Alliance win seats in Kyiv Council, Interfax-Ukraine (2 June 2014) In Kyivrada are 9 parties - official results, Ukrayinska Pravda (3 June 2014) 60% of the new Kyivrada is filled by UDAR, Ukrayinska Pravda (4 June 2014) Oleksandr Omelchenko biography at the Kyiv City Council official website 15 deputies of the party were elected to the Kyiv City Council in the 2015 Kyiv local election. Transformation of the Unity Party into the Unity of Oleksandr Omelchenko, Civil movement "Chesno" (29 September 2020) In other Ukrainian city councils across the country Unity gained 28 seats in the 2015 Ukrainian local elections. In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Unity nominated three candidates, all in constituencies located in Kyiv. None won a parliamentary seat. Omelchenko took the 5th place in his constituency, gaining a little more than 8%. Prior to the 2020 Kyiv local election (set for 25 October 2020) the party changed its name to Unity of Oleksandr Omelchenko. Oleksandr Omelchenko's Unity has announced the lists of candidates for the Kyiv City Council, Civil movement "Chesno" (21 September 2020)Rada appoints next elections to local self-govt bodies for Oct 25, Interfax-Ukraine (15 July 2020) ReferencesExternal links *Official web site - expired Category:Political parties in Ukraine "