Threats - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition threats

Definition :

Threats, or menaces of bodily hurt, through fear of which a man's business is interrupted, are civil injuries affecting the right of personal security. The remedy for this species of injury is in pecuniary damages.

By the Larceny Act, 1916, s. 30,

Every person who with intent:

(a) to extort any valuable thing from any person, or

(b) to induce any person to confer or procure for any person any appointment or office of profit or trust,

(1)publishes or threatens to publish any libel upon any other person whether living or dead; or

(2)directly or indirectly threatens to print or publish or directly or indirectly proposes to abstain from or offers to prevent the printing or publishing of any matter or thing touching any other person (whether living or dead),

shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and on conviction thereof liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding two years.

See also, s. 29 (ibid.), as to threats to accuse of certain serious crimes, and BLACKMAIL.

The sending of letters threatening to murder is punishable by penal servitude not exceeding ten years (Offences against the Person Act, 1861, s. 16). The sending of letters threatening to burn or destroy houses, buildings, ships, etc., is similarly punishable. (Malicious Damage Act, 1861, s. 50)

Patents.--Threatening by a patentee with legal proceedings is dealt with by s. 36 of the Patents and Designs Act, 1907, as substituted by s. 6 of the Act of 1932 (see LETTERS-PATENT), which is as follows:-

S. 36 (1).--Where any person, by circulars, advertise-ments or otherwise, threatens any person with an action for infringement of patent or other like proceedings, then, whether the person making the threats is or is not entitled to or interested in a patent or an application for a patent, any person aggrieved thereby may bring an action against him, and may obtain a declaration to the effect that such threats are unjustifiable, and an injunction against the continuance of such threats and may recover such damage, if any, as he has sustained thereby, unless the person making the threats proves that the acts in respect of which the proceedings are threatened constitute or, if done, would constitute an infringement of a patent in respect of a claim in the specification which is not shown by the plaintiff to be invalid or an infringement of rights arising from the acceptance of a complete specification in respect of a claim therein which is not shown by the plaintiff to be capable of being successfully opposed.

(2) The defendant in any such action as aforesaid may apply, by way of counterclaim in the action, for any relief to which he would be entitled in a separate action in respect of any infringement by the plaintiff of the patent to which the threats relate.

By s. 61 of the above remedy is made applicable with the necessary modifications (see s. 13 and Sch., Act of 1932) to the proprietor of a registered design.