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Article 14: Any invention claimed in a patent application filed by the employee in the year
following the expiration of the employment contract which is part of the main
activities of the former employer shall be deemed to have been made within the
framework of the contract which has expired, unless the employee provides
proof to the contrary.
Article 15: The inventor shall be mentioned as such in the patent unless, in a special written
statement addressed to the Industrial Property Director, he indicates that he does
not wish to be mentioned. Any promise or undertaking made towards anyone by
the inventor to the effect of making such a statement shall have no legal effect.
Article 16: The provisions of this Chapter shall apply to civil servants, to persons governed
by the Labor Code as well as to persons whose services have been hired
pursuant to the provisions of the Civil Code.
Chapter III: Subject matter excluded from patent protection
Article 17: The following shall be excluded from patent protection:
- Discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
- Plans, principles or methods in the field of economic activities, in the
performance of purely intellectual activities or in games;
- Methods of surgical or therapeutic treatment of the human or animal body as
well as diagnostic methods. This provision shall not apply to the products
used for the implementation of one of these methods;
- Natural substances, even if they had been purified, synthesized or isolated in
another manner. This provision shall not apply to processes making it
possible to isolate these natural substances from their original environment;
- Known substances for which a new use has been discovered;
- Plants and animals, including parts thereof, other than microorganisms, and
essentially biological processes for the breeding of plants and animals and
parts thereof, other than non-biological and microbiological processes;
- Animal breeds and plant varieties;
- Inventions whose exploitation is contrary to public order or morality, it being
understood that the exploitation of said invention is not contrary to public
order or morality owing to the sole fact that such exploitation is prohibited by
legislation;
- Pharmaceutical products, up until January 1, 2016.
Article 18: The provisions of Article 17 shall not apply: