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 The Green Bag Volume XXIV

July, 1912

Number 7

The Proposed Patent Law Amendments BY GILBERT H. MONTAGUE OF THE NEW YORK BAR I FR several months, proposals to amend the patent laws have been engaging the attention of Congress. Several bills propose to enable any body, during the life of a patent, to apply to the Commissioner of Patents for a license to make, construct, use and sell the patented article, and to compel the patent owner to grant a license to any applicant, upon such terms and for such royalty as the Com missioner "deems just." Even though one or more licenses have previously been granted, the patent owner would nevertheless be obliged to grant a license to anybody who thereafter applied for one. Several bills provide that unless the patent is worked within four years after it is issued, or "unless the owner shall show sufficient cause for such inaction," the patent owner must grant to any applicant a license to use the patent invention; and in the event of the re fusal of the patent owner so to do, the District Court shall hear the applicant, and if satisfied that "the reasonable requirements of the public in reference to the invention have not been satis fied," the court shall compel the patent

owner to grant a license to the applicant upon such terms and for such royalty as the court "deems just." These bills also provide that at any time during the life of a patent, whenever "a mate rial and substantial improvement shall be patented, the manufacture of which would be an infringement on the original patent," the owner of an improvement may, upon application to the court, compel, in like fashion, the owner of the original patent to grant a license to enable such improvement to be manufactured. These bills, in one form or another, all provide for so-called "compulsory licenses." Several bills provide that anybody that purchases or obtains a license to use an article embodying a patented inven tion shall have an absolutely "unrestric ted right" — regardless of any quali fying agreement made by such pur chaser or licensor with the patent own er — to use, sell or lease the article so purchased, without any liability what soever for any infringement of the patent or the license. Several bills, affecting articles pat ented and unpatented, forbid any agree ment between seller and purchaser,