John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Patents Office administers the certificate. The invention has to be novel, non-obvious and useful and the applicant must self certify that it is a relevant company as set out in the Finance Act 2015. There is a possibility of misuse of the invention but we have to have some trust in the Patents Office, which has a pretty good record in the application of the criteria.

We need to remember that it has the power to refuse the certificate based on that novel, non-obvious and useful provision. The Deputy spoke about possible abuse. That may be the case. I do not know of any instances as of yet.

Returning to SMEs, entrepreneurship and novel projects that have gone to the Patents Office, statistics apparently show that a lot of effort, time and even people's money went into it because they believed their inventions were novel and non-obvious. If we were to put something in place that would make it more difficult because of a tiny minority or one individual case or deliberately try to go outside the criteria, we may then hold back many individuals or small groups of people who may want to push forward with their ideas. We need to find a balance. It comes back to the criteria in legislation; the Patents Office would be quite capable of knowing if something was not non-obvious, not novel and not useful. Many patents are not granted.