PART VI SURRENDER OF PATENT OR CLAIMS AND CANCELLATION OF PATENT
Section 53(1) Any patentee may surrender his patent or any claim or claims there of in accordance with the rules and procedures prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations.
In order to surrender a patent or any claims under the preceding paragraph, if the patent is jointly owned by two or more persons, the surrender shall be made with the consent of all patentees. If licenses have been granted under Section 38, 45, 46, 47 or 47 bis such surrender shall be made with the consent of all licensees.
Section 54 Any patent granted not in compliance with the provisions of Section 5, 9, 10, 11 or Section 14 shall be invalid.
The invalidity of a patent may be challenged by any person. A petition to cancel an invalid patent may be submitted to the Court by any interested person or the public prosecutor.
Section 55(2) The Director-General may request the Board to cancel a patent in any of the following circumstances:
(1) when a license has been issued under Section 50 and a period of two years has lapsed from the date of issuance of the license, the patentee, the licensee of the patentee or the holder of the license fails to produce the patented product or use the patented process without any legitimate reason, or no patented product or product derived from the patented process is sold or imported into the country or such a product is hold at unreasonably high price, and the Director-General thinks that there is a good cause to cancel the patent;
(2) the patentee has licensed another person to use the rights contrary to the provisions of Section 41.
Before requesting the Board to cancel a patent, the Director-General shall order an investigation to be held, and notify the patentee and licensees of the order so that they may be given an opportunity to submit their statements. The submission of the statements shall be made within sixty days from the receipt of the order. The Director-General may require any person to appear before him to answer any question or to hand over any document or any other item to him.
After the investigation and where it appears that there is good ground to cancel the patent, the Director-General shall submit his report of the investigation to the Board to cancel the patent.