New Zealand Legislation: Acts

7 Persons entitled to make application

• (1) An application for a patent for an invention may be made by any of the following persons, that is to say:

  • (a) By any person claiming to be the true and first inventor of the invention:

  • (b) By any person being the assignee of the person claiming to be the true and first inventor in respect of the right to make such an application,—

  and may be made by that person either alone or jointly with any other person.

  (2) Without prejudice to the foregoing provisions of this section, an application for a patent for an invention in respect of which protection has been applied for in a convention country (whether before or after it became a convention country) may be made by the person by whom the application for protection was made or by the assignee of that person; and for the purposes of this Act the filing in any convention country of a complete specification after the filing of a provisional specification or provisional specifications in respect of any such application shall be deemed to be an application for protection in that country:

  Provided that no application shall be made by virtue of this subsection after the expiration of 12 months from the date of the application for protection in a convention country or, where more than one such application for protection has been made, from the date of the first application.

  (2A) For the purposes of this section, where more than one application for protection in a convention country has been made, the first application may be disregarded and the second application shall be substituted for the first application where—

  • (a) The first application was made in or in respect of the same convention country and by the same applicant as the second application; and

  • (b) Not later than the date of filing of the second application, the first application was unconditionally withdrawn, abandoned, or refused; and—

    • (i) The first application had not been made available to the public in New Zealand or elsewhere before its unconditional withdrawal, abandonment, or refusal; and

    • (ii) No rights remain outstanding in respect of the first application; and

    • (iii) The first application has not served to establish a priority date (as defined in section 2 of this Act) in relation to another application in any country.

  (3) An application for a patent may be made under subsection (1) or subsection (2) of this section by the personal representative or the assignee of the personal representative of any deceased person who, immediately before his death was entitled to make such an application.

  (4) An application for a patent made by virtue of subsection (2) of this section is in this Act referred to as a convention application.

  Compare: Patents Act 1949, s 1 (UK); 1921-22 No 18 ss 3, 48

  Subsection (2) was amended, as from 14 October 1999, by section 2(1) Patents Amendment Act 1999 (1999 No 119) by inserting the words “(whether before or after it became a convention country)”. Section 2(2) of that Act states that this amendment is for the avoidance of doubt.

  Subsection (2A) was inserted, as from 18 August 1992, by section 3 Patents Amendment Act 1992 (1992 No 81).