Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - Slovenia

Title:	Articles 125-126 of the Industrial Property Act of 23/05/2001 as last amended on 06/02/2006
Field of IP:	Patents
Type of flexibility:	Compulsory licenses and government use
Summary table:

Provisions of Law

Article 125

Compulsory licences

(1) The court may decide that a third party or the Government of the Republic of Slovenia exploit the invention without the authorisation of the owner of the patent:

(a) where the public interest concerning, in particular, national security, nutrition, health or the development of other vital sectors of the national economy so requires, or

(b) where the court has determined that the owner of the patent or his licensee abuses the patent rights, in particular where the manner of exploitation, contrary to the adopted regulations, restrains competition.

(2) The court shall grant compulsory licences under paragraph (1) with regard to given circumstances and after hearing the owner of the patent.

(3) Compulsory licences under paragraph (1) shall be granted provided that the person filing the request proves that he has made efforts to conclude a licence contract with the owner of the patent on reasonable commercial terms and that such efforts failed to succeed within a reasonable period of time.

(4) Paragraph (3) shall not apply if a state of war or similar state of emergency has been declared. Nevertheless, the owner of the patent shall be notified of the decision of the court as soon as reasonably practicable.

Article 126

Conditions for granting compulsory licences

(1) Compulsory licences under Article 125 shall be granted under the following conditions:

(a) scope and duration shall be limited with regard to their purpose;

(b) they shall be non-exclusive;

(c) they shall be non-transferable, with the exception of the part of the enterprise or business of the licence owner to which the licence refers;

(d) they shall be granted primarily for the supply of the market of the Republic of Slovenia.

(2) Where a patent, hereinafter referred to as "the second patent", cannot be exploited without infringing another patent, hereinafter referred to as "the first patent", the following conditions, in addition to those of Article 125 and paragraph (1) above, for the grant of compulsory licence in respect of the first patent shall be met:

(a) the invention claimed in the second patent shall involve a technical advance of considerable economic significance compared to the invention claimed in the first patent;

(b) the owner of the first patent shall under reasonable conditions be entitled to a crosslicence to use the invention claimed in the second patent;

(c) the use authorised in respect of the first patent shall not be transferable except with the simultaneous transfer of the second patent.

(3) The court shall decide that a compulsory licence expire if the circumstances which led to it being granted have ceased to exist and are unlikely to recur.