New Zealand Legislation: Bills
Bills are proposed Acts
(1) For the purposes of section 8, the disclosure of matter constituting an invention must be disregarded if 1 or more of the following applies:
(a) that disclosure occurred during the 1-year period immediately preceding the filing date of the patent application and the disclosure was due to, or made in consequence of, the matter having been obtained unlawfully or in breach of confidence by a person from—
(i) the inventor; or
(ii) any other person to whom the matter was made available in confidence by the inventor; or
(iii) any other person who obtained it from the inventor because the person or the inventor believed that the person was entitled to obtain it; or
(iv) any other person to whom the matter was made available in confidence by any person referred to in subparagraphs (i) to (iii) or in this subparagraph; or
(v) any other person who obtained it from any person mentioned in subparagraphs (i) to (iv) because the person or the person from whom the person obtained it believed that the person was entitled to obtain it:
(b) that disclosure occurred during the 1-year period immediately preceding the filing date of the patent application and the disclosure was made in breach of confidence by a person who obtained the matter in confidence from the inventor or from any other person to whom it was made available by, or who obtained it from, the inventor:
(c) that disclosure was due to the communication of the matter to a government department or to any person authorised by a government department to investigate the invention or its merits, or to anything done, in consequence of that communication, for the purpose of the investigation:
(d) that disclosure occurred during the 6-month period immediately preceding the filing date of the patent application and that disclosure was due to, or made in consequence of,—
(i) the display of the invention with the consent of the inventor at a specified exhibition; or
(ii) the use of the invention with the consent of the inventor for the purposes of a specified exhibition in the place where it is held; or
(iii) the publication of any description of the invention in consequence of its display or use at a specified exhibition as referred to in subparagraph (i) or (ii); or
(iv) the use of the invention, after it has been displayed or used at a specified exhibition as referred to in subparagraphs (i) and (ii) and during the period of the exhibition, by any person without the consent of the inventor; or
(v) a description of the invention in a paper being read by the inventor before a learned society or published with the inventor’s consent in the transactions of a learned society:
(e) that disclosure was due to, or made in consequence of, the invention being publicly worked, at any time during the 1-year period immediately preceding the filing date of the patent application, by any of the following persons if the working was effected for the purpose of reasonable trial only and if it was reasonably necessary, having regard to the nature of the invention, that the working for that purpose should be effected in public:
(i) the patentee or applicant:
(ii) any person from whom the patentee or applicant derives title:
(iii) any person with the consent of the patentee or applicant:
(iv) any person with the consent of any person from whom the patentee or applicant derives title.
(2) For the purposes of this section,—
inventor, in relation to an invention,—
(a) means the actual deviser of the invention; and
(b) includes any owner of the invention at the relevant time
specified exhibition means an exhibition (whether held in New Zealand or elsewhere) that is declared to be an international or industrial exhibition by the Commissioner in a notice that is publicly notified.
Compare: 1953 No 64 s 60; Patents Act 1977 s 2(4), (5) (UK)