I am grateful for this opportunity to refer to the chaos obtaining in the Patents Office. In 1996 this House passed into law the Trade Marks Bill, three years late, which would probably remain unenacted were it not that I had undertaken the bulk of the drafting in introducing a Private Members' Bill, taken over by the then Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Deputy Quinn, and used as the model for his Government Bill.
The Trade Marks Act, 1996, came into force on 1 July 1996 since when there has been complete chaos in the trade marks area. The Irish Patents Office, which administers both our trade mark and patent law, has examined no new applications under the 1996 Trade Marks Act. Worse still, the Patents Office has examined no service mark applications, even though some of them predated the enactment of that legislation, dating back to 1993. Between new applications under the 1996 Act and existing service mark applications, there are at present 10,000 applications in the pipeline, none of which has been examined or touched.
In these circumstances is it not reasonable to ask the Minister in question to accept responsibility for the chaos over which he is presiding? Somebody is responsible for this matter. Under section 6 of the Patents Act, 1992, the Controller of the Patents Office was made independent. I understand that the incumbent has been given a contract which enables him to hold on to that office for the remainder of his working life. I further understand that it would cost a lot of money to buy him out of that contract.
The fact that he is independent in his function does not take away from the Controller's obligation to carry out his statutory duties. My latest information — and I understand the position has worsened since I made a statement on the matter the other day — suggests that there has been complete non-co-operation, complete unwillingness to work the statute, complete dereliction of the duty to comply with basic statutory duties imposed by law on the Patents Office and the Controller in charge of it.
These are serious allegations to make but I stand over them. There has been complete non-co-operation and, as far as I can ascertain, the holder of that office has no intention of carrying out his statutory function unless the Minister insists that he should do so. I saw a press statement from the Patents Office indicating that it proposes to begin doing its work from Monday next. I regard that as an insult compounding the injury already done since that work should have been done all the time.
The Patents Office generates a profit income for this State of £3 million in patent fees and £2.5 million in trade mark fees alone. How one individual can decide that it is within his powers to simply throw away that State income and not carry out his functions defies belief as far as I am concerned. Apart from the scandalous abuse of public office involved, we are also dealing with a very serious inhibition to Ireland's capacity to attract foreign investment. I pay tribute to the work the Minister has undertaken to attract foreign investment, but if foreign investors knew that our Patents Office was being run in the manner it is, there would be a major problem in selling Ireland as a location for commercial activities using trade marks or service marks.
I want the Minister to give the House an undertaking that he will speak to the Controller of the Patents Office, clearly indicating to him that if that office does not discharge its functions he personally will discharge the Controller and make sure that somebody else does the work; that he will implement a crash programme to examine outstanding applications; that he will take immediate steps to examine service mark applications; that hearings between parties where there is a dispute, now four years in arrears, will be brought up to date immediately and that the office will carry out its quasi-judicial function to resolve those disputes. Furthermore, I want him to guarantee immediate action to ensure that assignments of trade marks, ownership changes, licence agreements and registered user agreements will be complied with immediately.
I want the Minister to make clear to this House now that he will insist on the Patents Office discharging its functions under the Trade Marks Act, 1996, and that he personally will ensure and guarantee to this House that its Controller will not be permitted to adopt a non-co-operative attitude. Newspaper reports suggest there are difficulties with a new computer. The Trade Marks Act, 1996, was going through the system for three years. If a computer was needed to operate it, it could have been bought, installed, serviced and brought up to scratch to come into operation on the same day as the Act.
Some 98 per cent of the staff do not want to be relocated to Kilkenny. Irrespective of the argument about decentralisation of the Patents Office to Kilkenny — I do not want to get involved in its merits one way or the other — it is no reason people should not do the duty cast on them by statute. Certainly it is no excuse for a senior official who is paid by the State to refuse to carry out his functions.