CLOSE WBITS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CLOSE WBITSAuthored

The Law Mind • 718 words

Definition

"Close wbits" does not appear as a recognized legal term in Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) or in the broader corpus of legal literature. The source material provided contains a partial, truncated entry for PATENT that references letters patent being "delivered open, and not closed," which is unrelated to any established term "close wbits."

The most likely explanation is a transcription error, OCR artifact, or corruption of another term. Possible candidates include:

1. CLOSE WRITS — Writs issued under seal and folded or closed, as distinguished from letters patent (open letters). In medieval English practice, writs directed to specific royal officers or individuals were sealed and delivered closed, hence "close" (Latin: clausae). These are recorded in the Close Rolls of the English chancery. This is the most probable source of the corrupted term.

2. CLOSE WRIT — The singular form of the above.

If the intended term is CLOSE WRITS or CLOSE WRIT, the following applies:

A close writ was a royal writ or letter issued under the great seal of England, folded and sealed so that the contents could not be read without breaking the seal. Unlike letters patent, which were open and addressed to the public at large, close writs were addressed to specific named individuals and were not intended for general publication. They were enrolled on the Close Rolls maintained in the English chancery and represent a primary source for medieval English legal and administrative history.

Common Confusion

CLOSE WRIT vs. LETTERS PATENT: These are opposing categories of royal instrument, not variations of the same thing. A close writ is sealed and private; letters patent are open and public. Black's (2nd Ed.) defines letters patent partly by this contrast, which is the likely source of the truncated text appearing in the source material here.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering "close wbits" in a scanned or digitized source should treat this as a likely OCR misread of "close writs." The letter "r" and the sequence "ri" are frequent OCR failure points in 19th-century legal typography, particularly in serif fonts where "wr" can scan as "wb."

If researching the underlying concept of close writs: the distinction between close writs and letters patent is foundational to understanding how medieval English royal authority was communicated and recorded. The Close Rolls (held at the Public Record Office, now The National Archives, London) run from 1204 onward and are an essential primary source for English legal history predating the common law reporter tradition.

The truncated Black's entry in the source material is describing letters patent — instruments delivered open — specifically by contrasting them with closed instruments. This contrast is the conceptual spine of the close writ/letters patent distinction and appears repeatedly in historical legal dictionaries when defining either term.

Researchers using Law Mind's historical dictionary sources should be alert to this OCR corruption pattern across any digitized edition of Black's or similar 19th-century legal texts. Searching for the corrupted string will not retrieve the intended term; manual review of surrounding text is necessary to reconstruct meaning from context.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) does not contain an entry for "close wbits" — the string is an artifact of the source transcription. Black's does define CLOSE ROLLS as the rolls upon which royal writs of a private nature (directed to particular individuals) were entered in the English chancery, and addresses the patent/close distinction under PATENT and LETTERS PATENT. No historical legal dictionary consulted uses "close wbits" as a term of art. The historical sources uniformly use "close writs," "close rolls," or "writs close."

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Closing Agreements (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia) — tax_14 — Not relevant to this term.
The Closing Process (The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia) — realestate_37 — Not relevant; "close" here refers to transaction settlement, an entirely different usage.

No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses close writs or the patent/close distinction in English chancery practice. Researchers should consult the encyclopedia's property and real estate materials only if researching the modern transactional sense of "closing," which is etymologically and legally unrelated.

CLOSE WBITSmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

; PATENT, n. A grant of some privilege, property, or authority, made by the government or sovereign of a country to one or more individuals. Phil. Pat. 1. In English law. A grant by the sovereign to a subject or subjects, under the great seal, conferring some authority, title, frantermed “letters patent” from being delivered open, and not closed — from inspection. In American law. The instrument by which a state or government grants public lands to an individual. A grant made by the government to an inventor, conveying and securing to him the exclusive right to make and sell his invention for a term of years. Atlas Glass Co. v. Simonds Mfg. Co., 102 Fed. 647, 42 C. C. A. 654; Société Anonyme v. General Electric ‘Co. 687, 40 Atl. PATENT 881 (C. C.) 97 Fed. 605; Minnesota ¥. Barber, 186 U. 8. 313, 10 Sup. Ct. 862, 34 L. Ed. 455; Pegram v. American Alkali Co. (C. C.) 122 Fed. 1000. —Patent bill office. The attorney general's patent bill offi¢e is the office in which were formerly prepared the drafts of all letters patent issued in England, other than those for inventions. The draft patent was called a “‘bill,’’ and the officer who prepared it was called the “clerk of the patents to the queen’s attorney and solicitor general.” Sweet.—Patent of precedence. Letters patent granted, in England, to such barristers as the crown thinks fit to honor with that mark of distinction, whereby they are entitled to such rank and ‘preaudience as are assigned in their respective patents, which is sometimes next after the attorney general, but more usually next after her majesty’s counsel then being. hese rank promiscuously with the king's (or queen’s) counsel, but are not the sworn servants of the crown. 3 Bl. Comm. 28; 3 Steph. Comm. 274.—Patent-office. In the administrative system of the United States, this is one of the bureaus of the department of ‘the interior. It has charge of the issuing of patents to inventors and of such business as is connected therewith.—Patent-right. A right secured by patent; usually meaning .a right to the exclusive manufacture and sale of an invention or patented article. Avery v. Wilson (C. C.) 20 Fed. 856; Crown coe & Seal Co. v. State, 87 Md. 58 L. R. A. 417; Com. v. Central, ete., Tel Ce 145 Pa. 121, 22 Atl. 841, 27 Am. St. Rep. 677. —Patent-right dealer. Any one whose business it is to sell, or offer for sale, patentMente. 14 St. at Large. 118.—Patent rolls. he official records of royal charters and grants; covering from the reign of King John to recent times. They contain grants of offices and lands, restitutions of temporalities to ecclesiastical persons, confirmations of grants made to bodies corporate, patents of creation of ee and licenses of all kinds. Hubb. Succ. 17; 32 Phila. Law Lib. 429.—Pioneer patent. A patent for an invention covering a function never before performed, or a wholly novel device, or one of such novelty and importance as to mark a distinct step in the progress of the art, as distinguished from a mere improvement or ‘perfecting of what has gone before. Westinghouse v. Boyden Power-Brake Co., 170 U. S. 537, 18 Sup. Ct. 707, 42 L. Ed. 1136.

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