PATENT RIGHTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26849, 13 August 1948, Page 6

PATENT RIGHTS

MONOPOLY ALLEGED LETTER TO COMMISSION P.A. WELLINGTON, Aug. 12. Alleging that the whole procedure of patent rights had become the monopoly of the patent agents and that nothing could be done without solid fees, Mr A. H. Larkman, of Wanganui, in a letter of submissions read to the Patents Commission to-day, urged that the administrative side of the Patents Office should be made a department of the Public Trust and that the Patents Office technical- staff should be piade a ■section of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

The Public Trust Department, it was suggested, could be staffed by suitably qualified members of the present Patent Office staff together with absorbed patent agents and patent lawyers. Under his proposals, Mr Larkman submitted, an inventor could have his patent application handled by the Public Trustee on a fixed scale of charges with some assurance that he would not be in any way exploited. The Public Trust could act in sales or licences 0 f rights and could take action against infringements. It might, on the advice pf the technical section, finance all costs of obtaining letters patent, being suitably covered and recouped from the future marketing of the articles. It was clear, Mr Larkman said, that commercial and other interests, from their submissions, were endeavouring to make, the inventor’s position even worse than at present.