The Times
London, Middlesex, England

February 26, 1821

This was an action upon a patent. The plaintiff is the assignee of a certain musical instrument called "the Kent bugle," being an improvement upon the common bugle by the addition of keys, after the manner of the flute and clarionet: and the complaint was that the defendant, by making an improved bugle, carrying six keys instead of five, had infringed upon the right of the original inventor. The patent under which Mr. Collins claimed was obtained by Mr.Halliday, of the Cavan Militia, who first made "the Kent bugle," and the defendant, after attempting to impeach the originality of the invention by showing that more than 20 years since keys had been applied to an instrument called the serpent, attacked the specification. The specification (as usual) was found insufficient, and The Lord Chief Justice, with reluctance, nonsuited the plaintiff.

Submitted by: County Cavan Newspaper Transcription Project