(1) Where the same applicant has put in 2 or more provisional specifications for inventions which are cognate or modifications one of the other, and has obtained thereby concurrent provisional protection for the same, and the Crown Attorney is of opinion that the whole of such inventions are such as to constitute a single invention and may property be included in one patent, he or she may accept one complete specification in respect of the whole of such applications, and cause a single patent to be granted.
(2) Such patent shall bear the date of the earliest of such applications, but in considering the validity of the same and for the purpose of these provisions with respect to oppositions to the grant of patents, the Court or the Registrar, as the case may be, shall have regard to the respective dates of the provisional specifications relating to the several matters claimed.