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Patents Act, 1992
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PART V

Use of Inventions for the Service of the State

Assignment of invention, application, or patent to Minister of Government.

76.—(1) Any inventor, or any applicant for or proprietor of a patent, may (either for or without valuable consideration) make to a Minister of the Government, and such Minister may take on behalf of the State, an assignment of the whole of or any share or interest in the benefit of an invention, of a patent application therefor, or of any patent obtained or to be obtained therefor, and where a Minister of the Government takes any such assignment, such Minister may do, or, as may be appropriate, join in doing, on behalf of the State, all or any of the following things, that is to say—

(a) develop and perfect such invention,

(b) form or promote an incorporated company or an unincorporated association of persons to develop and perfect such invention,

(c) sell or lease any such patent application or patent or grant licences under any such application or patent on such terms as he shall, with the agreement of the Minister for Finance, think proper,

(d) form or promote an incorporated company or an unincorporated association of persons to work commercially any such invention,

(e) do all such things as may be necessary for the maintenance or preservation of any such application or patent or be otherwise incidental to the ownership thereof.

(2) Every Minister of the Government shall, before the 1st day of April in every year, lay before each House of the Oireachtas a report of every (if any) exercise by him during the year ending on the previous 31st day of December of the several powers conferred on him by paragraph (c) or (d) of subsection (1) and also, if and so far as he considers it to be in the public interest, of any or all of the powers conferred by paragraph (a), (b) or (e) of subsection (1).

(3) All expenses incurred by a Minister of the Government under this section shall, to such extent as may be sanctioned by the Minister for Finance, be paid out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas.