Commonwealth Numbered Acts

PATENTS ACT 1990 No. 83, 1990 - SECT 119

119. (1) Where, immediately before the priority date of a claim, a person:

   (a)  was making a product or using a process claimed in that claim; or

   (b)  had taken definite steps (whether by way of contract or otherwise) to
        make that product or use that process; the person may, despite the
        grant of a patent for the product or process so claimed, make the
        product, or use the process, (or continue to do so) in the patent
        area, without infringing the patent.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the person:

   (a)  derived the subject-matter of the invention concerned from the
        patentee or the patentee's predecessor in title in the invention; or

   (b)  before the relevant priority date, had stopped making the product or
        using the process (other than temporarily), or had abandoned (other
        than temporarily) the steps mentioned in paragraph (1) (b).