When finalised, the Community Patent promises to streamline the
existing EU patent registration system.
At present, patents can either be granted through national
patent offices, or by the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO
grants Europe-wide patents on the basis of a single application,
although to be enforceable in the individual Member States, the
patent may still have to be translated into the language of the
respective State.
Consequently, getting an EU-wide patent is far from cheap. The
Commission has estimated the cost to be in the region of €50,000
five times more expensive than the cost of registering a patent in
Japan or the US. It anticipates that a Community Patent will cost
25,000.
In March the Council of Ministers agreed upon the main
principles and features of the jurisdictional system for the
Community Patent, the language regime, costs, the role of national
patent offices and the distribution of fees. But there were several
outstanding matters, which it was hoped would have been resolved at
the Competitiveness Council meeting last week.
The most contentious of these was the question of the time
period within which translations of the patent application had to
be filed with the EPO. According to European news site Cordis, some
Member States, such as Germany, the UK and France, preferred a
two-year period, while others wanted the time limited to six
months.
In the event, no agreement has been reached, although efforts
are reportedly still being made to resolve the issue.
