Catalogue description Committee for Co-ordinating Departmental Policy in connection with Patented and Unpatented Inventions and predecessor: Minutes and Papers

The Interdepartmental Committee on Safeguarding Post War Rights in Inventions was established on 8 March 1944 under the chairmanship of Sir William Palmer. Its terms of reference were 'to consider and report on the means that could be adopted to safeguard postwar rights in inventions and information'.

On 26 August 1944 its title was changed to the Committee For Co-Ordinating Departmental Policy In Connection With Patented And Unpatented Inventions. In 1946 Sir Edward Hodgson became chairman and he was succeeded in 1949 by Sir Henry Gregory.

In Sir William Palmer's opening statement at the first meeting of the Committee he said that concern had been expressed in correspondence between the Ministry of Production, the Board of Trade and the Radio Board as to the extent of the control which was being secured over post war use of wartime inventions and technical research sponsored by the Government. Sir William added that much patentable information had not been patented either in Britain or the United States, and a great deal more was not of a patentable character.

In February 1953 an Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the United States of America to facilitate the interchange of patents and technical information for defence purposes (Treaty Series No 9, Cmd 8757) was published.