I make a brief intervention to give notice to the Minister that I intend to raise this is at a future stage in the Bill. This matter came to my attention rather late in the day and I do not expect him to respond at this moment.
There is concern about the breadth of the definition in Clause 4, particularly proposed new Section 224A(b) with regard to,
“an act which is done for experimental purposes”.
The corresponding section in the Patents Act 1977 provides further clarification of what,
“done for experimental purposes”,
means. It relates to the subject matter of the invention. Proposed new Section 244A(c)(ii) should also clarify what “mention” and “source” mean.
A better proposal might be,
“the owner of the design right is identified during the teaching or as part of the citation as the case may be”.
It should be up to the person relying on his defence to prove that the owner of the design right was probably identified.
Unless the Minister writes to me in the mean time, I will probably raise these issues on Report. Again, I am indebted to the Law Society and I declare an interest.