treewind:"Rather than which way the buttons point, I think the feature that distinguishes concertinas of all systems from other bellows driven instruments is that their symmetry: the fingering system for left and right hands is substantially the same".

RE:I agree symmetry of "concertinas" is a good basic discriminating factor but I would not mention anything about fingering systems being "symmetrical" since they are not so with Anglos, Duets or the Chemnitz, Karlsfeld or Bandonion variants and 3 row button "accordions" with 3 row "free bass" have more "symmetrical" fingering than many concertinas.

IanC:"I was looking at figure 45".

RE: Yes, so was I.. and this figure likely is the root of the misunderstandings regarding the 1829 papers "patenting the concertina"
It definitely may be looked upon as a description of what we may call "the concertina concept" or something alike and like I said it no question presents good historic substance for a claim that CW by this document is the probable "inventor" of the "concertina concept" if we by that mean something different from the "accordion concept" that Demian patented at about the same time.Like CW says himself the application of bellows for a harmonica-like free-reed instrument was NOT new and that seemeingly was the reason for NOT making any claims regarding the "symphonium with bellows".
IF the patent had any real importance for patent rights - and it does seem so in practise since other concertina makers didn't turn up until later on - my guess is that the factual *patenting* of the *keyboard* was the main factor.The 1844 CW patent for instance seems to have had no major importance to stall competition As we know from other examples just saying that there is a patent or an application for a patent may delay competition for a while.