Legislative Implementation of Flexibilities - Armenia

Title:	Articles 69-70 of the Patent Law of 10/06/2008
Field of IP:	Patents
Type of flexibility:	Compulsory licenses and government use
Summary table:

Provisions of Law

Article 69. Compulsory License

(1) Any person or the Republic of Armenia may, without the consent of the patent owner (rightholder), use the protected invention, utility model or industrial design (compulsory license) by court decision where:

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

(b) it is 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;

(c) the invention, utility model, industrial design has not been used or has been used unconscientiously during the period of 4 years from filing the application or 3 years from granting patent (certificate) (the later filing date shall be applied).

(2) The court shall grant compulsory licenses under paragraph (1) of this Article with regard to given circumstances and after hearing the right holder.

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

(4) Paragraph (3) of this Article shall not apply if a state of war or emergency has been declared.

Article 70. Conditions for Granting Compulsory Licenses

(1) Compulsory licenses under Article 69 shall be granted under the following conditions:

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

(b) they shall be only non-exclusive;

(c) they may not be transferred to third parties, with the exception of the licensee enterprise or business;

(d) they shall be granted primarily for the suffice of the internal market demand.

(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 paragraph (1) above, for the grant of compulsory license in respect of the first patent it is necessary that:

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

(b) the owner of the first patent shall, under reasonable conditions, be entitled to a cross-license to use the invention protected by the second patent;

(c) the use authorized in respect of the first patent shall be transferred by the person having the compulsory license only with the simultaneous transfer of the company's part, where the use of the mentioned subject matter is realized.

(3) The compulsory license is recognized as expired by the court decision:

(a) if the circumstances which led to it have been eliminated and are unlikely to recur;

(b) after receiving compulsory license the license-holder didn't undertake the necessary preparatory work to use it during one-year period.

(4) In the case of semiconductor technologies a compulsory license may be granted only by the State for exclusively non-commercial use as well by judicial or administrative authorities for prevention of unfair competition.