In August last year, the European Commission set out its
proposals for a new, unitary, EU-wide patent. The EU’s Economic and
Social Committee has now voted in favour of the proposals,
following a six month investigation. The new system could be in
operation late this year, making EU-wide patent protection cheaper
for inventors.
Patents protect inventions for up to 20 years. The great
drawback of the current patent system is the cost of obtaining a
patent in the first place and then enforcing it if it is infringed.
One major reason is that patent protection is obtained on a
country-by-country basis, resulting in duplication of costs and
professional advice and different objections being raised by
different patent examiners in different countries. As for
enforcement, patents can be and frequently are interpreted
differently by the courts of each country.
In Europe, currently, patents can be obtained either on a
country-by-country basis or by using the European Patent System
(EPS) which allows a unitary administrative application leading to
a bundle of separate, national patents. Whichever route is used,
the patents have still to be enforced in the courts of each
country.
The upshot has been that whilst the EPS has significantly
reduced the cost of making multiple national patent applications,
an average patent covering 8 countries kept in force for 10 years
will cost £20,000 i.e. some 5 times more than the equivalent cost
of a US or Japanese patent, with no less than 40% of this expense
resulting from translation costs.
The new Community Patent would cover the EU’s 15 member states.
One patent application, which sets out the full details, would be
filed in either English, German or French. This would be
accompanied by a description of what the inventor claims the patent
covers in each of the three languages. The granted patent would be
enforced in a new, central patent court (“the Community
Intellectual Property Court”) within the European Court of Justice
which would have exclusive jurisdiction over questions of validity
and infringement. Arguments over ownership and licensing would
remain with the national courts.
The Economic and Social Committee has suggested that the
Commission should structure the new patent system so that
applications can be accepted in any EU language and that they
should then be translated into English, French or German, but
without additional cost to the inventor.
