MISUSE OF PATENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25802, 24 March 1945, Page 9

MISUSE OF PATENTS

GERMAN PRACTICE REVEALED VANSITTART’S INDICTMENT LONDON, Mar. 22. The Germans used the patent system as a means of preventing or discouraging manufacture and research in the countries of their intended victims, thereby stepping up their own preparations for aggression, said Lord Vansittart, in the House of Lords. He asked why enemy patents were not vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property, and how many enemy patents were still secret, and said the Germans described the inventions for which they wanted patents so vaguely that they gave away nothing. When British inventors sought patents and described inventions, the Germans blocked the applications by pretending that their own covered them. He had known cases where it had taken British firms 18 months of protracted litigation to establish against obstructive and treacherous opposition claims for licences which ought never, to have been doubted. He would deny a neutral the right to act as a receiver of stolen goods, or to perpetuate the system which contributed so much to the two wars. No neutral country had the right to shelter German patents any more than it had the right to shelter German arms. Lord Vansittart recalled that the Swedish firm of Bofors after the last war took in Krupps. He hoped Britain would not tolerate anything more of that kind. Lord Maugham suggested an inquiry to find out whb really were the owners of patents which were sought here from abroad. Steps should be taken to checkmate the operation of future applications for patents and to take the property from the real German owners. The vagueness of the description of many German inventions was fraudulent, and there ought to be an investigation to see whether some German-held patents were valid.

Lord Simon, in reply, said inquiry was proceeding on some of the matters raised. A committee was considering what changes were desirable. Some of the matters raised the law, and the patents office practice, as also the prevention of the abuse of monopoly rights through the patents law. The Controller of Patents was authorised early in the war to grant licences for the use of enemy patents, designs, and copyrights. There had been great use of these. Many enemy patents had ceased to be patents, because the enemies could not pay the renewal fees. The Government was not blind to the things Lord Vansittart had pointed out. Britain was unlikely to allow enemy patents to revert after the war to the defeated enemy.