Patent rights and the infringement thereof under Maltese law

Abstract

It is widely asserted that the protection conferred through patent rights provides a mechanism to realise returns on the often substantial investments made in developing inventions. However patent rights have barely been tested by the Maltese courts and thus a substantial degree of uncertainty lies with respect to the exact protection they provide under Maltese law. Undeniably certainty is the mother of quiet and repose, and uncertainty the cause of variance and contentions‘. Thus, in an attempt to provide some much needed clarity on this legal topic, this thesis will endeavour to provide an in-depth analysis of the protection conferred thereby and the infringement thereof under Maltese law. Given the unstudied nature of the topic, it has been necessary to commence from first principles; that is by delineating that a patent only provides negative rights and no positive rights are provided thereby and that a patent is granted covering an invention and not the article representative thereof. In this regard, in an attempt to illustrate the unique nature thereof, the justification provided therefor in an era of general aversion towards monopolies and a brief of the origins thereof are provided. Afterwards the components of a patent will be explored and it will be envisaged that it is the disclosure in the claims as understood by a person skilled in the art, which is ultimately the scope of protection of a patent. Having established this, a commentary on the rights conferred by a patent is provided and it is held that ultimately the protection conferred thereby is limited to the rights encapsulated in article 27 of the Patents and Designs Act. In conjunction thereto the qualifications of patent protection; that is the circumstances exempted from infringement and the limitations of the rights conferred, are examined. In view of these commentaries, it has been concluded that the assertion that patent rights effectively provide a patentee with a monopoly over the exploitation of the subject-matter of an invention is indeed adequate in principle.