Revocation
An application to revoke a patent is lodged with the Registrar, but is referred to the Commissioner of Patents for determination in that Court. The most applicable grounds for revocation are:
- The person in whose name the patent is registered (the patentee) is not the inventor nor an assignee of the inventor;
- The patent was granted to someone who fraudulently claimed to be entitled to the patent;
- The invention is not new;
- The invention is obvious;
- The invention cannot be used or applied in trade, agriculture or industry;
- The invention is likely to encourage immoral or offensive behaviour;
- The invention is for a plant or animal variety;
- The invention is a biological process for the production of plants or animals;
- The invention as claimed cannot be performed or does not lead to the results claimed;
- There is a lack of information in the complete specification to illustrate or explain to a person skilled in the art how it functions or is to be performed;
- What is claimed is different from what is disclosed in the body of the specification;
- The forms lodged with the application for the patent contain materially false statements;
- The invention is frivolous.
Read section 61 of the Patents Act.
The proceedings follow the pattern of ordinary litigation in the High Court.