Patents and Designs Act 1946
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1946 c. 44 |
| Year | 1946 |
Patents and Designs Act, 1946
(9 & 10 Geo. 6.) CHAPTER 44.
An Act to amend the Patents and Designs Acts, 1907 to 1942, and the Patents, Designs, Copyright and Trade Marks (Emergency) Act, 1939, in respect of matters arising out of hostilities or the communication of inventions and designs in accordance with agreements or arrangements with other countries.
[15th April 1946]
B E it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Application to comptroller for extension of term of patents where loss arises by reason of hostilities.
1. At the end of section eighteen of the principal Act (which relates to the extension of the term of patents and provides in subsection (6) thereof for cases in which the patentee has suffered loss or damage by reason of hostilities between His Majesty and any foreign state) the following subsection shall be added:—
(8) In any case where an application could be made to the court under subsection (6) of this section—
(a ) the application may, at the option of the patentee, be made in the prescribed manner to the comptroller instead of to the court, and the foregoing provisions of this section shall apply, so far as applicable and subject to the necessary modifications, to such an application in like manner as they apply to an application to the Court under the said subsection (6), except that the requirement imposed on an applicant by subsection (1) of this section to advertise his intention to make the application shall be dispensed with;
(b ) if the comptroller considers that the application raises issues of a kind that would be more fittingly decided by the court, he may, if he thinks fit, refer the application for decision by the court;
(c ) an appeal shall lie to the Appeal Tribunal from any decision of the comptroller on an application made under this subsection, and on such an appeal the applicant and any other parties to the proceedings shall be entitled to appear and be heard, and the comptroller shall also be entitled to appear and be heard and shall appear if so directed by the Tribunal.’
2 Protection of inventions and designs communicated under agreements or arrangements with other countries.
2. For section ninety-one C of the principal Act (which contains provisions as to communication of inventions and designs under agreements or arrangements with other countries) there shall be substituted the following section:—
91C
(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, the Board of Trade may make rules to secure that, where an invention or design has been communicated in accordance with an agreement or arrangement made between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the government of any other country for the supply or mutual exchange of information or articles,—
(a ) such communication, or the publication, making, use, exercise or vending of the invention, or the publication or application of the design, in consequence of such communication, shall not prejudice any application for a patent for the invention or any application for the registration of the design, being an application made by a person from whom the invention or design was so communicated or the legal representative or assignee of such a person, or invalidate the grant on such an application of a patent for the invention or the registration on such an application of the design;
(b ) any such application shall have priority over any other application for a patent for the invention or any part thereof or for the registration of the design or any part thereof, if that other application was made by a person who obtained the invention or design or part thereof in consequence of such communication as aforesaid;
(c ) any application for a patent for an invention or for the registration of a design may be refused on the ground that the invention or design or any part thereof was obtained in consequence of such communication as aforesaid, and any patent or registration of a design may be revoked or cancelled on that ground.
(2) Rules made under the foregoing subsection may provide that the publication, making, use, exercise, vending or obtaining of an invention, or the publication, application or obtaining of a design, shall, in such circumstances and subject to such conditions or exceptions as may be prescribed by the rules, be presumed to have been in consequence of such communication as aforesaid.
(3) The powers of the Board of Trade under this section, so far as they are exercisable for the benefit of persons from whom inventions or designs have been communicated to His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom by the government of any other country, shall only be exercised if and to the extent...
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