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Total entries in this category: Published On: May 18, 2008 10:36 PM |
Experimental use of patentsThe Commonwealth Government has released
ACIP's report into Patents and Experimental Use.
According to the Media
Release:
The report recommends that patent law be changed to make it clear that research done for experimental purposes does not infringe patents, as long as it does not unreasonably conflict with the normal exploitation of a patent. ACIP believes this will allow researchers to continue experimenting in patented fields, but if anyone wants to use a patented invention in the normal way then a license must be obtained from the owner. Of course, the tricky bit will lie in how you draw the line between "unreasonably conflict with the normal exploitation of the patent". There are at least 2 WTO Dispute Panel rulings on that now. The full recommendation, on p. 84 of the report, goes on to explain: Acts done for experimental purposes relating to the subject matter of the invention include: - determining how the invention works; - determining the scope of the invention; - determining the validity of the claims; - seeking an improvement to the invention. ACIP agreed generally with the recommendation proposed by the ALRC that experimenting on an invention should be OK, but not experimenting with an invention. This approach was rejected as it was felt too difficult to distinguish between "on" and "with", particularly in the biotech field. But, as the Media Release also notes: Although it has been common practice within the industry to allow certain levels of experimentation on patented inventions, business practices are changing and continued uncertainty in this area could hold back the Australian research industry. The changing business practices presumably mean that there will be lots of lobbying before there is any prospect of this recommendation seeing a Parliamentary draftsperson. The Government will apparently consider the recommendations "carefully". The Media Release is here. The report in full is here. Posted: Wednesday - 09 November, 2005 at 07:28 PM | |