New Patents Act Summarized
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ilANY of our readers will be interalested in the Patents (International Conventions) Act of 1938 which gives effect to the amendment made in the International Convention at the London meeting in 1937, and came into operation on August 1, 1938.
The following is a brief summary, by an authority on patent law, of the more important provisions of the new Act:—
(1) The real inventor or inventors will now be entitled to have his or their names mentioned as such. In this connection we would point out that in the case of Convention applications and in the case of applications filed as communications from abroad, the real inventor's name does not usually appear. This mention may either be requested by the applicant or applicants or claimed by the inventor, but such request or claim must be made within two months of the date of advertisement of .the acceptance of the application or within such further period (not exceeding one month) as the Comptroller may allow.
(2) The 16-year period for which the patent is granted will begin on the date on which the specification accepted as a complete specification is treated by the Comptroller as having been left.
(3) No order for the revocation of a patent on the ground of abuse of monopoly rights (Section 27), shall be made until after the expiration of at least two years from the grant of the first compulsory licence.
(4) Cognate Convention applications (claiming two or more priorities) under Section 91 (2) can now be made cognating applications made abroad in two or more different names, provided that the Convention rights have all been assigned to the same person or persons in respect of Great Britain, and provided that the Convention applications have all been made in the same country.
(5) Provision is made for appeals to the Appeals Tribunal in respect of a number of sections of the Act under which there was previously no appeal from the decision arrived at by the Comptroller.