correspond to the grading required by the State of origin.

2. The Commission may also pass on these communications to Joint Undertakings or,  through a Member State, to a person or to an undertaking other than a Joint  Undertaking operating in the territory of that State.

Inventions which are the subject of applications referred to in paragraph 1 may be  used only with the consent of the applicant or in accordance with Articles 17 to 23.

The communications and, where appropriate, the use referred to in this paragraph  shall be subject to the measures which, under the security regulations, correspond to  the security grading required by the State of origin.

The communications shall in all cases be subject to the consent of the State of origin.  Consent to communication and use may be withheld only for defence reasons.

3. At the request of the Commission or of a Member State, the Council may, acting  unanimously, at any time apply another grading or declassify the information. The Council shall obtain the opinion of the Commission before taking any action on a  request from a Member State.

Article 26

1. Where information covered by patents, patent applications, provisionally  protected patent rights, utility models or applications for utility models has been  classified in accordance with Articles 24 and 25, the States which have applied for  such classification may not refuse to allow corresponding applications to be filed in  the other Member States.

Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to maintain the security of such  rights and applications in accordance with the procedure laid down in its own laws  and regulations.

2. No applications relating to information classified in accordance with Article 24  may be filed outside the Member States except with the unanimous consent of the  latter. Should Member States fail to make known their attitude, their consent shall be  deemed to have been obtained on the expiry of six months from the date on which the  information was communicated to the Member States by the Commission.

Article 27

Compensation for any damage suffered by the applicant as a result of classification  for defence reasons shall be governed by the provisions of the national laws of the  Member States and shall be the responsibility of the State which applied for such  classification or which either obtained the upgrading or extension of the  classification or caused the filing of applications outside the Community to be  prohibited.

Where several Member States have either obtained the upgrading or extension of the

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