Compulsory licences for safety installations?

A practical example serves here for discussing the issue of whether one can obtain a compulsory licence for a safety installation. Or, put another way, can the inventor of such a safety installation be forced to grant a licence with respect to the patent which protects his invention, thus enabling a third party to produce a product and to sell it? Possible reasons for the inventor to refuse grant of a licence could be that he plans to produce the product himself, but at that time still lacks the resources to go into production. Alternatively, he may still have an existing (less efficient) product and wants to sell it first until his investment into it is amortized. Therefore, he may hold back the new and more effective product. Another reason may be simply that the party seeking a licence is his competitor. This article deals with the legal possibilities.

Keywords:

• Compulsory Licence
• Safety
• Patent
• Germany
• Europe