Patent Law Reform and the Chemical Industry

Abstract

UNDER the title “Memorandum on Patent Law Reform” there have now been published under one cover Parts 1 and 2 of the evidence submitted to the Board of Trade Parents Committee by the Joint Chemical Committee Patents, which consisted of representative of the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers, the Biochemical Society, the British Association of Chemists, the Chemical Society, the Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Society of Chemical Industry, and, for Part 1, the Wholesale Drug Trade Association. Part 1 of this Memorandum consists of answers to the fourteen questions issued by the Departmental Committee for the guidance of witnesses, together with the dissenting views of Dr. G. H. Fraser of the Therapeutic Research Corporation, Ltd., and was submitted to the Board of Trade Committee in September 1944. Part 2 covers the wider aspects of patent law reform and was submitted in June 1946. A number of the recommendations have already been adopted in the Second Interim Report of the Departmental Committee which was discussed in Nature of July 6, p. 1.