Patent protection at trade fair

Press, 6 March 1987, Page 5

Patent protection at trade fair

A near-forgotten act of Parliament has been invoked to give special patent protection at a trade fair to be held in Christchurch this month.

The protection means that new inventions shown at the third Southern Machinery Show, may be granted patents up to six months after the show.

Normally, an invention may not be patented if it has become “public domain” by having been shown to two or more people before the patent application is filed. Mr Claude Sargent, a spokesman for XPO Exhibitions, the organiser of the show, said that the special provision was "stumbled on quite by accident” after the last show, two years ago.

It was discovered that the Exhibitions Act, 1908, made provision for a show to be gazetted by the Governor-General. New inventions shown at a gazetted show are then exempt the provisions of the Patents Act and Designs Act which would otherwise prevent patents being granted. It gives six months grace from the date of the show’s opening, Mr Sargent said.

The protection extends both to exhibitors and to "back yard Inventors” who might come to a show to discuss their ideas with exhibitors, he said.

The Christchurch Patent Attorney, who had told XPO Exhibitions of the possibility og gazetting the show, said that it appeared that gazetting had not been done for several decades.

It was done after application to the Justice Department’s Patents Office, whose staff appeared not to realise that they had that power. The attorney, who asked not to be identified for professional reasons, said that inventors being denied patents because their ideas had already been shown was “quite a problem.”

Large firms did not fall into the trap, but persons such as farmers would often exhibit their inventions, then find they could not seek patents.

The show will run from March 18 to 20, at the King Edward Barracks.

It will be opened by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Caygill.