National security
26. The Department has in fact removed articles 9
to 11 from the proposed Order entirely. The draft order now makes
no amendment to sections 22 or 23 of the 1977 Act, and the existing
national security provisions in the Act will remain unaffected
by the draft Order.
27. As a consequence the Schedule to the proposed
Order has been omitted from the draft order, together with article
23, which would have made the Schedule subject to amendment by
subordinate provisions order.
28. The Government has instead sought to make the
amendments to the 1977 Act by means of amendment to the Patents
Bill [Lords]. The Bill was amended in Lords Grand Committee
on 8 March 2004, when a new clause was added with the intended
effect of inserting new subsections into section 23 of the 1977
Act.[15] The new subsections
would remove the restriction on UK residents filing patent applications
abroad, except in cases where an application contains information
which relates to military technology, or where for any other reason
publication of the information might be prejudicial to national
security or the safety of the public.[16]
It appears that this amendment is consistent with the intention
the Department indicated to us earlier, and which we have noted
at paragraph 19 above.
29. The relevant provisions are included in Clause
7 of the Bill as introduced in this House on 19 April. The Bill
received an unopposed Second Reading on 7 June, and was allocated
to Standing Committee D on 9 June. The Committee is required to
report the Bill by 17 June.[17]
We do not comment here on the provisions of the Bill as amended
in the Lords, but we draw the House's attention to the examination
of the matter which we undertook in our report on the proposal.
Corrections to the report
30. The Department has indicated that, in its opinion,
the reports of the Commons and Lords Committees on the proposal
for the Order contained misapprehensions about the detail of the
proposal.[18] It has
listed them in Annex A of the explanatory statement.[19]
We are grateful to the Department for drawing them to our attention,
and we in turn draw them to the attention of the House.
31. The Department has indicated that it does not
consider that the misapprehensions in our report affect the validity
of the conclusions we reached therein.[20]
We agree.
15 HL Deb, 8 March 2004, cols GC 349-52 Back
16
For further detail see the Explanatory Notes to the Bill, Bill
(2003-04) 90-EN, paras 50-53. Back
17
Votes and Proceedings, 7 June 2004. The Standing Committee reported
the Bill on 15 June. Back
18
Explanatory statement, para 3.06 Back
19
Explanatory statement, paras A.1-A.15 Back
20
Explanatory statement, para 3.08 Back
