SPECIFICATION

SPECIFICATION, civil law. A term used in the civil law, by which is meant a person's making a new species or subject from materials belonging to another. Bouv. Inst. Theolo. ps. 1, c. 1, art. 1, §4, Is. 4, p. 74.

2. When the new species can be again reduced to the matter of which it was made, the law considers the former mass as still existing, and, therefore, the new species as an accessory to the former subject; but where the thing made cannot be so reduced, as in the case of wine, which cannot be again turned into grapes, there is no place for the fictio juris; and, there, the workmanship draws after it the property of the material. Inst. 2, 1, 25 Dig. 41, 1, 7, 7. See Accession; Confusion; Mixtion; and Aso & Man. Inst. B. 2, t. 2, c. 8.

SPECIFICATION

SPECIFICATION, practice, contracts. A particular and detailed account of a thing: example, in order to obtain a patent for an invention, it is necessary to file a specification or an instrument of writing, which must lay open and disclose to the public every part of the process by which the invention can be made useful if the specification does not contain the whole truth relative to the discovery, or contains more than is requisite to produce the desired effect, and the concealment or addition was made for the purpose of deception, the patent would be void; for if the specification were insufficient on account of its want of clearness, exactitude or good faith, it would be a fraud on society that the patentee should obtain a monopoly without giving up his invention. 2 Kent, Com. 300; 1 Bell's Com. part 2, c. 3, s. 1, p. 112; Perpigna on Pat. 67; Renouard, Des Brevets d'Inv. 252.

2. In charges against persons accused of military offences, they must be particularly described and clearly expressed; this is called the specification. Tytl. on Courts Mart. 109.