INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY. APPENDIX H. INVENTIONS SPECIALLY EXCLUDED FROM PROTECTION BY PATENT. The following extracts from patent laws are copied, except Austria and Japan, from Carpmael's Patent Laws of the World, and its Supplement: AUSTRIA. Bureau.j [Law of January 11, 1897, translated from the Tableau Comparatif," published by the Industrial Are not patentable: (1) Inventions whose object or use is contrary to law, immoral, or hurtful to health, or which are evidently intended to deceive the public; (2) problems or scientific principles as such; (3) inventions relating to objects reserved to state monopoly; (4) inventions relating to (a) foods and objects of consumption (Genussmittel) for the human species; (b) medicines and disinfectants; (c) matters obtained by chemical processes in so far as the inventions mentioned under No. 4; a to c do not belong to a definite technical process. BRAZIL. [Law of October 14, 1892.] SEC 2. The following inventions can not be the subjects of patents: (1) Those contrary to law or morality; (2) those dangerous to public security; (3) those hurtful to public health; (4) those which do not offer practical industrial results. DENMARK. [Law of March 28, 1894.] 1. Patents are granted for inventions which can be industrially utilized or the carrying out of which can be made the object of industrial gain. The following are, however, not patentable: (1) Inventions which, as such, can not be considered to be of substantial importance; (2) inventions the exercise of which is contrary to law, morality, or public order; (3) inventions which at the date of patent applications have already been so described in some generally accessible print, or in this country been brought into use so openly that experts are thereby enabled to exercise them; and (4) inventions of means for healing and articles of food or refreshment, and of processes for the production of articles of food. FRANCE. [Law of July 5, 1844.] ART. 3. The following are not patentable: (1) Pharmaceutical compositions or medicines of all kinds, the said objects remaining subject to the special laws and regulations for those matters, and especially to the decree of the 18th August, 1810, relating to secret remedies; (2) schemes and combinations relating to credit and finance. GERMANY. [Law of April 7, 1891.] SEC. 1. Patents are granted for new inventions which allow of industrial application. Excepted are: (1) Inventions the application of which is contrary to the law or public morals; (2) inventions relating to articles of food, whether for nourishment or for enjoyment, and medicines, as also substances prepared by chemical processes in so far as the inventions do not relate to a definite process for the preparation thereof. HUNGARY. [Law of July 7, 1895.] SEC. 2. A patent can not be allowed for an invention: (1) The working of which is contrary to a law or an ordinance or to public morals; (2) which relates to arms 1 for war purposes, explosives, ammunition, fortifications, or ships of war necessary for increasing the belligerent power of the Austro-Hungarian army, the navy, or the Hungarian militia, provided the minister of commerce enters an opposition against the grant of such patent within the time named in the second paragraph of sec. 34; (3) for scientific theorems or principles as such; (4) for articles serving for human or animal nourishment, for medicines, and articles produced by chemical processes; the process employed in making such articles can, however, be patented. ITALY. [Law of January 31, 1814.] ART. 6. The following are not patentable: (1) Inventions or discoveries relating to trades which are contrary to law, morals, or public safety; (2) inventions or discoveries not relating to the manufacture of material objects; (3) inventions or discoveries of a mere theoretical nature; (4) all kinds of medicines. JAPAN. [Patent regulations promulgated by imperial ordnance No. 84. (December 18, 1888.) Translation of British legation, Tokio.] ART. 2. The following are not patentable: (1) Articles of food, drink, or fashion; (2) medicines, or methods of compounding them; (3) articles which have been in public use before the application for a patent. MEXICO. [Law of June 7, 1890.] ART. 4. The following can not be patented: (1) Inventions or improvements of which the working is contrary to the prohibitive law or to public safety; (2) scientific principles or discoveries which are merely speculative and can not be reduced to a machine, an apparatus, an instrument, a process, or a mechanical or chemical operation of a practical, industrial character. NORWAY. [Law of June 16, 1885.] SEC. 1. Patents shall be granted for new inventions which may be beneficial to industry. The following are excepted: (a) Inventions the use of which would be contrary to the law, morality, or public order; (b) inventions the object of which are articles of food, nourishment, or medicine; but a patent may be granted for a process or apparatus specially designed for manufacturing such articles. PORTUGAL. [Declaration of December 15, 1894.] ART. 10. Patents granted for chemical industries shall refer only to processes and not to the products themselves, which might be prepared by other means. ART. 11. Pharmaceutical preparations and remedies intended for human use or for animals can not be the subjects of patents or inventions, but only the processes for the manufacture of such preparations or remedies. RUSSIA. [Law of May 20-June 1, 1896.] ART. 4. Patents can not be granted for inventions and improvements: (a) Which consist of scientific discoveries and abstract theories; (b) which are contrary to public order, morals, and decency; (c) which, prior to the date when the application for the patent was lodged, have been patented in Russia or have been used there without patent, or which have been described in printed books or journals in sufficient detail to enable them to be reproduced; (d) which are known abroad without patent or which are patented there in the name of a person other than the applicant, except in the case in which the invention has been assigned to the latter; (e) which do not involve any sufficiently inventive novelty, but only insignificant modifications of inventions and improvements already known. Further, no patent is granted for chemical, nutritious, and gustatory products, for medical compounds, or for processes and apparatus for the manufacture of the latter. 1 INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY. SPAIN. [Law of July 30, 1878.] ART. 9. The following shall not be the objects of patents: (1) The result or product of the machines, apparatus, instruments, processes, or operations mentioned in the first paragraph of article 3, unless they are contained in the second paragraph of the same article; (2) the use of natural products; (3) scientific principles or discoveries, so far as they are of a mere speculative nature, and are not likely to be applicable to machinery, apparatus, instruments, processes, or mechanical or chemical operations of a practical industrial nature; (4) pharmaceutical or medical preparations of all sorts; (5) schemes or combinations of credit or finance. SWITZERLAND [Law of 1888.] ART. 1. The Swiss Confederation grants in the form of patents of invention to the inventors of new inventions applicable to industry and represented by models, or to their assigns, the rights specified in the present law. (Chemical products are not included.) SWEDEN. [Law of May 16, 1884.] SEC. 2. Patents shall not be granted for inventions the working of which would With regard to inventions relating to provisions or be contrary to law or morals. medicines, patents shall not be granted for the commodity itself, only for special methods for its manufacture. TUNIS. [Law of December 26, 1888.] ART. 3. The following shall not be patentable: Schemes and combinations relating to credit or finance and inventions the practice of which would be contrary to law If the invention relates to foods or medicines, the patent shall not and morality be granted for the product itself, but only for special processes relating to its manufacture. APPENDIX I. LAWS OF SOME OTHER COUNTRIES IN REGARD TO COMPULSORY AUSTRIA The Austrian patent law of January 15, 1897, does not provide for working, but for the expropriation of patents when the interest of the army or public safety or any other urgent interest of State requires that the invention be employed wholly or in part by the civil or military administration, or that the invention be abandoned to public use, or payment of an indemnity, to be determined by a judgment of the provincial administration at Vienna. (Article 15.) License is provided for in article 21 as follows: The proprietor of a patent for an invention which can not be put in practice without the use of a prior patented invention has the right, when three years have run from the publication in the Patent-Blatt of the delivery of the patent, to demand from the proprietor of such invention the grant of a license to use it when the later invention is of a notable industrial importance. The license granted gives to the proprietor of the prior patent the right to demand on his part a license from the proprietor of the later patent which authorizes him to use the later invention, admitting always that the said invention is found in effective connection with the prior invention. S. Doc. 231, pt 8—30 BELGIUM. [Law of May 24, 1854.] Article 23, in regard to working of patents, is as follows: "The proprietor of a patent must work, or cause to be worked, in Belgium the patented article within a year from the date of its having been worked or used in a foreign country. "The Government may, however, by an explanatory decree, inserted in the 'Moniteur' before the expiration of this term, grant a prolongation of one year at most. "At the expiration of the first year, or of the delay which shall have been granted, the patent shall be annulled by a royal decree." "Annulment shall also be pronounced when the patented article made use of in a foreign country shall have ceased to be worked in Belgium during one year, unless the possessor of the patent shall be able to justify the motives of his inaction." (4 O. G., p. 267.) DENMARK. [Law of April 13, 1894.] # Section 23, so far as it relates to working, is as follows: "A patent becomes void: (4) When the patentee has not practiced his invention within three years after the granting of the patent in this country, and later in more than one year has omitted to do so. "These delays may be extended by making application in good time to the commission, when it is made evident that circumstances which can not be charged against the patentee have prevented the practice. The commission should also exempt the patentee from manufacturing the patented article when it is proven that the expenditures would not conform to the consumption in the country on the conditions that the patentee makes provisions to have the article for sale here." (68 0. G., p. 282.) FRANCE. [Law of July 5, 1844.] ART. 32. The following shall be deprived of all their rights: "(2) The patentee who has not worked his discovery or invention in France within the term of two years from the date of the signature of his patent, or who has ceased to work it during two consecutive years, unless in the one case or the other he justifies himself as to the causes of his inaction. (3) The patentee who has introduced into France articles manufactured abroad and similar to those which are protected by his patent. Nevertheless the minister of agriculture, commerce, and public works may authorize the introduction— "1. Of models of machines. "2. Of articles made abroad intended for public exhibitions or for trials made with the consent of the Government." (Carpmael's Patent Laws of the World, 2d ed., p. 178; see also 2 O. G., p. 567.) (The words in italics were substituted by the law of 31st May, 1856.) GERMANY. [Law of April 7, 1891, in regard to working and compulsory license.] ART. 11. The patent can be worked at the end of three years from date of the official publication of the grant. (1) If the owner of the patent neglects to put the invention into practice within the realm to an adequate extent, or at any rate to do everything that is necessary to insure such carrying out of the invention. (2) If it appears to be in the interest of the community that license to others for the use of the invention should be granted but the owner of the patent declines to grant such license for reasonable compensation and adequate security. (Carpmael's Patent Laws of the World, Supplement.) GREAT BRITAIN. [Patents, designs, and trade-marks act, 1883 to 1888, in regard to compulsory license.] 22. If, on the petition of any person interested, it is proved to the board of trade that by reason of the default of a patentee to grant licenses on reasonable terms(a) The patent is not being worked in the United Kingdom; or (b) The reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the invention can not be applied; or (c) Any person is prevented from working or using to the best advantage an invention of which he is possessed, the board of trade may order the patentee to grant licenses on such terms as to the amount of royalties, security for payment, or otherwise, as the board, having regard to the nature of the invention and the circumstances of the case, may deem just, and any such order may be enforced by mandamus. HUNGARY. The Hungarian law of July 7, 1895, permits a revocation or notice to the owner, if he has neglected to work or use his invention within the countries of the Hungarian Crown in substance and to an adequate extent, or if he has unjustifiedly interrupted such working or use by suspending, or if he has not at least done according to his own and the country's circumstances and conditions all that is necessary for securing and continuing such working. NORWAY. [Law of January 1, 1886, section 27, in regard to working.] A patent shall, by judgment, be made void if the patentee shall not have worked the patent within the termination of three years from the date of the patent, either himself or through others in the Kingdom, or have offered the patented object for sale; also, if after that period the working of the offering for sale has been discontinued during one year. If this be caused by a casual incident, the last-mentioned period can be increased by the patent commission on application. In particular cases the patent commission shall have power, after representation, to make exceptionally distinct provision for what is required for the working or arrangement for sale within the Kingdom. (33 O. G., p. 501.) PORTUGAL. [Decree of December 15, 1894, article 39, in regard to working.] He who within two years from the date of the patent shall not have put his invention into practice, either himself or by his representative or assignee fabricating in Portugal the manufactured articles, or products to which the said invention relates, or shall cease to so manufacture for two successive years unless he can prove a legitimate impediment, shall lose the said privilege. (Carpmael's Patent Laws of the World, Supplement.) RUSSIA. [Decree of May 20, 1896, in regard to working.] ART. 23. The delivery of a patent does not free the beneficiary from the obligation of conforming, as concerns the setting in operation of his invention or improvement, to the laws and regulations existing, as well as those that may be promulgated in future. ART. 24. The beneficiary of a patent is required within a period of five years, to date from the delivery of the patent (art. 20), to apply the invention or improvement in Russia and to furnish in reference to this the direction of commerce and manufactures with an affidavit emanating from the authority designated by the minister of finances. (79 O. G., p. 2202.) SPAIN. (Law of July 30, 1879, in regard to working.] SEC. VII, par. 38. Owners of patents or certificates of addition shall be required to prove before the director of the conservatory of arts within two years of the date of the patent or the certificate of addition that they have established a new industry on Spanish territory. The term of two years within which working has to be proved can only be prolonged by a law on equitable ground, and only for a term not exceeding six months. (26 O. G., p. 110.) |