Note 423 — Chapter XX · THE LAW OF PROPERTY.

There are certain cases, however, which have been decided on the assumption that incorporeal property possesses no local situation at all. For this reason it was held in The Smelting Company of Australia v. Commissioners of Inland Revenue, (1897) 1 Q. B. 172, that a share of a New South Wales patent, together with the exclusive right of using it within a certain district of that colony, was not property “locally situated out of the United Kingdom” within the meaning of sect. 59, sub-sect. 1, of the Stamp Act, 1891. “I do not see,” says Lopes, L.J., at p. 181, “how a share in a patent, or a licence to use a patent, which is not a visible or tangible thing, can be said to be locally situate anywhere.” See, however, as to this case, the observations of Vaughan Williams, L.J., in Muller & Co.’s Margarine, Limited, v. Inland Revenue Commissioners, (1900) 1 Q. B. at p. 322, and of Lord Lindley on appeal in the House of Lords, (1901) A. C. at p. 237. See further, as to the local situation of incorporeal property. Danubian Sugar Factories v. Commissioners of Inland Revenue, (1901) 1 K.B. 545; Commissioner of Stamps v. Hope, (1891) A. C. 476; Att.-Gen. v. Dimond, 1 C. & J. 356; 35 R. R. 732; In re Clark, (1904) 1 Ch. 294; Dicey, Conflict of Laws, pp. 309–314, 2nd ed.