I beg to move amendment No. 15, in schedule 2, page 12, line 24, at end insert—

'In section 1 (patentable inventions), in subsection (1)(d), after ''subsections (2) and (3)'' there is inserted ''or section 4A''.'.

We addressed Opposition amendment No. 1 this morning, and the Government accepted the principle that the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire identified about the patents. I will explain the background first, and the rest should flow from that.

In the interests of public health, a patent cannot be granted for an invention that comprises a medical method—that is, a method of treatment or diagnosis. If such a patent is granted, anyone can later ask the courts or the Patent Office to revoke it. The Bill simplifies the legal mechanism by which such medical methods are excluded from patentability, and in doing so aligns UK law with the revised European patent convention.

The right hon. Gentleman argued that the new provision might give rise to doubt over whether, if a patent is granted for such an invention in the future, it could be revoked later. If someone wished to revoke a patent that had been granted for a method or treatment, it is possible that they could argue successfully for revocation on the grounds that new section 4A makes it clear that a patent may not be granted for a medical method invention, so the courts could well deduce that it was never the Bill's intention to remove the possibility of revoking a patent for a medical method. Nevertheless, I can see that this is a less certain position than at present, and it is better to ensure that we continue to provide this outcome explicitly in UK patent law. We saw the benefits of addressing the issue that the right hon. Gentleman raised, but we have chosen a slightly different form of words to achieve what we think he intended to achieve.

Amendment agreed to.