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Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - Malta

Title:Articles 13 (1) (b), 15 and 44 (1) (b) of the Patents and Designs Act, Chapter 417, of 01/06/2002 as last amended by Act XVIII of 2005
Field of IP:Patents
Type of flexibility:Disclosure related flexibilities
Summary table:PDF

Provisions of Law

Requirements of application

13. (1) An application for a patent shall be made in the prescribed form and shall be filed at the Office of the Comptroller and shall contain -

(b) a description of the invention;

15. (1) The application shall disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for the invention to be carried out by a person skilled in the art.

(2) (a) Where an application refers to an element isolated from the human body or otherwise produced by means of a technical process including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, the industrial application of a sequence or a partial sequence of a gene must be disclosed in the patent application.

(b) When the application concerns a sequence or a partial sequence of a gene used to produce a protein or part of a protein, it is necessary to specify which protein or part of protein is produced or function or sequence it performs.

(3) Where an invention involves the use of or concerns biological material which is not available to the public and which cannot be described in a patent application in such a manner as to enable the invention to be reproduced by a person skilled in the art, the description shall be considered inadequate for the purpose of this Act unless:

(a) it is supplemented by a deposit of such material with a depository institution as may be prescribed; and

(b) the application as filed contains such relevant information as is available to the applicant on the characteristics of the biological material deposited.

(4) Access to the deposited biological material shall be provided through the supply of a sample:

(a) up to the first publication of the patent application, only to those persons who are authorized under this Act;

(b) between the first publication of the application and the granting of the patent, to anyone requesting it or, if the applicant so requests, only to an independent expert;

(c) after the patent has been granted, and notwithstanding revocation or cancellation of the patent, to anyone requesting it.

(5) The sample shall be supplied only if the person requesting it undertakes, for the term during which the patent is in force:

(a) not to make it or any material derived from it available to third parties; and

(b) not to use it or any material derived from it except for experimental purposes, unless the applicant for or proprietor of the patent, as applicable, expressly waives such an undertaking.

(6) Where an application is refused or is withdrawn, then at the applicant's request, access to the deposited material shall be limited to an independent expert for twenty years from the date on which the patent application was filed, and in such case the provisions of subarticle (5) shall apply.

(7) The applicant's requests referred to in subarticle (4)(b) and in subarticle (6) may only be made up to the date on which the technical preparations for publishing the patent application are deemed to have been completed.

(8) If the biological material deposited in accordance with this article ceases to be available from the recognized depositary institution, a new deposit of the material shall be permitted on the same terms as those laid down in the Budapest Treaty.

(9) Any new deposit shall be accompanied by a statement signed by the depositor certifying that the new deposited biological material is the same as that originally deposited.

Invalidation of patents

44. (1) The Civil Court, First Hall may on a writ of summons filed by a third party or the Comptroller, invalidate a patent, in whole or in part, on any of the following and may not do so on any other ground

(b) that the patent does not disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art as stipulated in article 15;

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