Section 6 Patents and Designs Act 1971

Section 6 of the Patents and Designs Act 1971 is about Rights conferred by patent. It is under ‘Patents’ of the Act. It provides as follows:

(1) A patent confers upon the patentee the right to preclude any other person from doing any of the following acts—
(a) where the patent has been granted in respect of a product, the act of making,
importing, selling or using the product, or stocking it for the purpose of sale or
use; and

(b) where the patent has been granted in respect of a process, the act of applying
the process or doing, in respect of a product obtained directly by means of the
process, any other acts mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection.

(2) The scope of the protection conferred by a patent shall be determined by the
terms of the claims; and the description (and the plans and drawings, if any) included in the patent shall be used to interpret the claims.

(3) The rights under a patent-
(a) shall extend only to acts done for industrial or commercial purposes; and
(b) shall not extend to acts done in respect of a product covered by the patent after the product has been lawfully sold in Nigeria, except in so far as the patent makes provision for a special application of the product, in which case the special application shall continue to be reserved to the patentee notwithstanding this paragraph.

(4) Where, at the date of the filing of a patent application in respect of a product or process or at the date of a foreign priority validly claimed in respect of the application, a person other than the applicant-
(a) was conducting an undertaking in Nigeria; and

(b) in good faith and for the purposes of the undertaking, was manufacturing the
product or applying the process or had made serious preparations with a view
to doing so, then, notwithstanding the grant of a patent, there shall exist a right (exercisable by the person for the time being conducting the undertaking, and not otherwise) to continue the manufacture or application, or to continue and complete the preparation, and thereafter undertake the manufacture or application, as the case may be, and in respect of any resulting products to do any other act mentioned in subsection (1) of this section.

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