Patents Bill

65 Duty to inform Commissioner of search results

• (1) The applicant must, in the prescribed manner, inform the Commissioner if required by the Commissioner, inform the Commissioner, in the prescribed manner, of the results of any documentary searches by, or on behalf of, a foreign patent office carried out for the purpose of assessing the patentability of an invention disclosed in the complete specification or a corresponding application filed outside New Zealand.

  (2) Subsection (1)—

  • (a) does not apply to a search if the search is prescribed as a type of search to which this section does not apply; and

  • (b) applies only to searches completed before the grant of the patent.

  (3) A search is completed on the earliest of—

  • (a) the date, if any, specified in the search report as the date that the report was issued; and

  • (b) the date, if any, specified in the search report as the date that the search was completed; and

  • (c) the date that the search results were issued to the applicant or patentee by the foreign patent office.

  (4) In this section, foreign patent office means an office, organisation, or other body that may grant protection in respect of an invention in a country outside New Zealand.

  Compare: Patents Act 1990 s 45(3) (Aust)