INVESTIGATION OF NEW PATENTS IN N.Z

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22694, 20 July 1948, Page 6

INVESTIGATION OF NEW PATENTS IN N.Z

(P.A.)

WELLINGTON, July 19.

The evolution of the New Zealand Patent Office from a place of registry to an organisation having in addition, as it has today, the duty of investigating new patent applications with a view to ensuring their novelty, was described in a statement presented by the Patent Office before today’s resumed commission of inquiry into patent law and procedure. The system of a thorough technical examination of patent applications was of comparatively recent development, the statement said. A considerable backing up of the work in recent years had followed the spate of inventions, most of them of a technical nature, during the war and had made investigation by experts a necessity. ‘‘While the technical examination of all patent applications has been adopted as the policy of patent administration in New Zealand, there is no statutory provision in the present Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act that renders the making of such an examination obligatory,” it was stated. ‘‘The commission may, if it so sees fit, consider whether in future legislation for examination as to novelty should be made mandatory as it is in the equivalent British Act.”