or after a certain period of negotiations with the patent owner or
offering reasonable conditions to acquire his agreement to the
exploitation.
(c) Support of national efforts in vital sectors for economic, social
and technological development, without unreasonable prejudice to the
rights of the patent owner and taking into consideration the legitimate
interests of third parties.
In cases stated in items (a) and (c), the owner of the patent shall
be notified promptly of the decision of non-voluntary exploitation,
and as soon as reasonably practicable in cases stated in item (b).
(2) Upon the request of the Minister of Health, when the quantity of
patented medicines made available fail to adequately meet the national
needs, due to their poor quality or if they are offered at a prohibitive
price, or if the patent is related to medicines addressing critical
cases, incurable or endemic diseases or products used in the prevention
of these diseases, or where the invention is related to the medicines,
their manufacturing process, the raw materials necessary for their
preparation or the process of manufacturing of those materials.
In all these cases, the decision of granting non-voluntary license shall
be notified promptly to the owner of the patent.
(3) Where the patent owner refuses to grant license to a third party
seeking the exploitation of the invention, whatever the purpose of the
exploitation, and despite the offer of suitable terms and the lapse
of reasonable negotiation time.
In this case, the party requesting the non-voluntary license shall
provide evidence that he has made serious efforts to obtain a voluntary
license from the patent owner.
(4) If the owner of the patent fails to exploit the invention in Egypt,
himself or through his consent; or if the patent was not sufficiently
exploited after the lapse of four years since the date of the application
or three years since the grant of the patent, whichever comes later;
or if the patent owner suspended, without a valid reason, the
exploitation of the patent for more than one year.
The exploitation of a patent shall be through the manufacturing of the
patented product or the use of the patented process in Egypt.
Nevertheless, where the Patent Office finds that, despite the
expiration of either of the above mentioned time limits, failure to
exploit the invention was due to legal, technical or economic reasons
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