Article 24 of the Saudi Patents Law

This article regulates the compulsory license, which under Article 2 is permission for a third party to exploit protected subject matter without the consent of the document's owner. The City may grant it for an invention or an integrated circuit layout design on application, subject to these conditions (paragraph A):

1. Non-exploitation: the application is filed after 4 years from the filing of the patent application or 3 years from its grant, whichever expires later, and the owner has not exploited the invention or has exploited it insufficiently, unless the owner justifies this with a legitimate excuse.
2. Attempt to negotiate: the applicant proves that, within a reasonable period, it made efforts to obtain a contractual license on reasonable terms and for reasonable consideration.
3. Local market: the license is granted mainly to supply the invention or design in the local markets.
4. The decision defines the scope and duration of the license according to its purpose, and the license is subject to termination if the circumstances for which it was granted have ended and are unlikely to recur, taking into account the legitimate interests of the licensee.
5. The license must not be exclusive, and each application is decided on its own.
6. The owner must receive fair compensation, which the Committee determines and the licensee must pay.

Exceptions: the first and second conditions do not apply if the applicant is a government body or a person authorized by it, and the purpose is the public interest (such as security, health, nutrition and the development of vital sectors), or to deal with an emergency or other extremely urgent circumstances, or for general non-commercial purposes. In that last case, the owner is notified immediately once the existence of the patent or certificate becomes known. The third condition does not apply if the purpose is to limit practices that have been declared, by decision or judgment, to be unfair competition.

Semiconductors (paragraph B): a compulsory license for semiconductor technology is limited to general non-commercial purposes or to limiting those practices.

Dependent patents (paragraph C): if a patent involves an important technical advance of considerable economic value and cannot be exploited without exploiting another patent, the City may grant the owner of that patent a compulsory license over the other patent. This license cannot be assigned except together with the owner's own patent, and the owner of the other patent is entitled to a cross-license from the compulsory licensee on reasonable terms.

This differs from the contractual license in Article 23, which rests on agreement. To apply for a compulsory license or to object to one, consult a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and patents.