Patents Act, 1964

Assignment of invention or patent to a Minister of State.

91.—(1) Without prejudice to the provisions of the last foregoing section, any inventor or patentee may (either for or without valuable consideration) make to a Minister of State on behalf of the State, and such Minister may take on such behalf, an assignment of the whole of or any share or interest in the benefit of an invention and of any patent obtained or to be obtained for such invention, and where a Minister of State has taken any such assignment, such Minister may (as the case may be) do or 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) take an assignment of any patent or of a share or interest in any patent theretofore or thereafter obtained for such invention,

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

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

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

(2) Every Minister of State 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 in the next preceding year of the several powers conferred by paragraphs (d) and (e) of subsection (1) of this section and also, if and so far as he considers it expedient in the public interest, of the several powers conferred by paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (f) of the said subsection.

(3) All expenses incurred by a Minister of State 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.