PATENTS ACT (as amended) ss 1–2 PART XI INTERNATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS 79. 80. 81. 82. 82A. 83. Convention countries. Supplementary provisions as to Convention applications. Special provisions as to vessels, aircraft and land vehicles. Protocol on Patents and Industrial Designs. Patent Co-operation Treaty Protection of inventions communicated under international agreements. PART XII OFFENCES AND PENALTIES 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. Falsification of certain documents. Deceiving or influencing Registrar or other officer. Witness giving false evidence. Prohibition on trafficking in patents by officers. Unauthorized claim of patent right. Unauthorized use of certain words. [Repealed] PART XIII GENERAL 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. Lodging and authentication of documents. Expenses of administration. Provisions as to fees. Saving for certain forfeitures. Patent and Trade Marks Journal. Power to make regulations. [Repealed] SCHEDULE: Protocol. AN ACT to consolidate and amend the law relating to patents; and to provide for matters incidental to or connec ted with the foregoing. [Date of commencement: 1st February, 1972.] PART I PRELIMINARY 1 2 Short title This Act may be cited as the Patents Act [Chapter 26:03]. Interpretation (1) In this Act— “applicant” includes a person in whose favour a direction has been given under section eighteen or his legal representative; “appointed day” means the 1st February, 1972; “article” includes any substance or material and any equipment, machinery or apparatus, whether affixed to land or not; “assignee”, in relation to an invention, means— (a) a person who has derived his title to the invention for Zimbabwe directly or indirectly from the inventor thereof or from the latter’s assignee; or (b) the legal representative of a person referred to in paragraph (a); “Controller” means the Controller of Patents, Trade Marks and Industrial Designs appointed in terms of paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of section three; “Convention application” means an application made by a person referred to in subsection (2), as read with subsection (3), of section six; “Convention country” means a country or territory which the President has, in terms of section seventy-nine, declared to be a Convention country for the purposes of this Act; “date of lodging”*, in relation to any document lodged under this Act, means the date on which the document is lodged or, where it is deemed by virtue of any provision of this Act to have been lodged on any different date, the date on which it is deemed to have been lodged; “department of the State” means any— (a) department of the State; or (b) statutory corporation or authority which is prescribed for the purposes of this definition; “effective date”*, in relation to— (a) an application which has been ante-dated or postdated under this Act, means the date to which that application has been so ante-dated or post-dated; (b) an application in a Convention country, means the date on which the application in respect of the relevant invention was made in the Convention country in question or is in terms of the laws of that country deemed to have been so made; (c) any other application, means the date on which that application was lodged at the Patent Office; “examiner” means a person appointed in terms of paragraph (c) of subsection (2) of section three to be an examiner; “exclusive licence” means a licence from a patentee which confers on the licensee, or on the licensee and persons authorized by him to the exclusion of all other persons, including the patentee, any right in respect of the patented invention; “invention” means any new and useful art, whether producing a physical effect or not, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter which is not obvious or any new and useful improvement thereof which is not