§ Mr. S. C. SilkinI beg to move Amendment No. 79, in page 33, line 5, at end insert:
(4) The Patents Appeal Tribunal shall, with regard to the right of audience, observe the same practice as before the first day of November nineteen hundred and thirty-two, was observed in the hearing of appeals by the law officer and may also extend the right of audience to such other persons or classes of person as the Tribunal may from time to time prescribe by rules.This Amendment stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling), who has asked me to apologise to the Attorney-General for his inability to be here to move it himself. It is a probing Amendment to ascertain the intentions of the Government with regard to the right of audience before this tribunal, and no doubt the reply will be delivered to him in due course.
§ The Attorney-GeneralNo one knows what the practice was before 1932, so it is not possible to say. The Amendment would put the clock back to the unsatisfactory state of things before the Administration of Justice Act, 1970, which gave rules, and those rules give rights to barristers, solicitors and patent agents to appear before the Patents 580 Appeal Tribunal. It is sensible to retain that provision. The Banks Committee recommended last July the establishment of a Patents Court of the High Court to hear all patent actions, and this is under urgent consideration by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
§ Amendment negatived.