The Community patent and the patent system in Europe, with evidence / House of Lords, Select committee on the European Communities.

  • Great Britain. Parliment. House of Lords. Select Committee on the European Communities.
Date:
1998
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Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: The Community patent and the patent system in Europe, with evidence / House of Lords, Select committee on the European Communities. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    4 February 1998] [Continued Q7. Should the Luxembourg Convention be turned into a legal instrument covered by the EC treaty (i.e., a regulation made under Article 235)? Yes. Q8. What are the implications for the development of patent laws and policy at the national and wider international level? Is further harmonisation desirable, necessary, inevitable? Further harmonisation is desirable, but on the right terms. Q9. What should be the relationship between any Community instrument and the European Patent Convention? The EPC has been a success but that statement has to be qualified. Delays are too great and the associated litigation system needs reform desperately. Litigation is discussed above. The delays are such that for periods as long as ten years, half the life of the patent, industry has to cope with uncertainty on whether, and in what form, a patent will finally be granted. This is a major problem for innovative companies, whether the patent is theirs or a competitor’s. The main advantages of taking the EPC system into the Community regime are simplification of introducing changes, and the opportunity to introduce changes in the organisation of the EPO. The Institute notes that the present construction and voting system of the Administrative Council of the EPO are perceived as a potential barrier to healthy change. Nevertheless, being within the Community regime may also not help the EPO to achieve optimal efficiency. But the Institute would emphasize again the need to ensure the EPC route as well as the national routes are preserved at least until the unitary system has been proven over a sufficient number of years. The litigation system must have been successful, and the whole system must have reached a price level to compete with the EPC and national systems, and be as at least accessible for SMEs as those systems. All main procedural, pre-grant fees should be reduced, since they are all unduly large and could be substantially reduced without fear of a flood of worthless patent applications. In any case the correct measure to protect against such a flood is maintenance of a high standard of search and examination. It would be helpful to all applicants, particularly small firms, if they could receive the result of a good quality search expeditiously and at low cost, in order to assess whether to proceed with the application. The fee system needs to be changed progressively to ensure, as soon as possible, that the system is mainly financed by renewal fees, as are the national systems. Research should be done on the practical efforts, and possible problems, of introducing reduced fees for SMEs. It is acceptable for some revenue from fees from European patents to be used partly to finance the national systems. However, such revenue should be dedicated to the benefit of the patent system and the encouragement of innovation, and used in a transparent way. It should not be used as a general resource of revenue by exchequers or to build up large and unnecessary reserve funds. An objective non-automatic link between the needs voiced by the national systems and the allocation of financial resources from a Community or European system would be attractive but could lead to repeated tedious negotiations. Certainly, the allocation of financial resources should be made more transparent. National offices will continue to serve a useful function as a very quick and cheap route to patents, as a convenient entry point to the EPC and Community patent systems and as providers of advice on the patent system generally. These roles will need to be financed from their own fees except when there is a clear Community role, where some finance from the Community of EPC systems would be logical. In addition national patent offices could be encouraged to provide, at a competitive cost, contract services to the EPO, such as search and examination of applications for Community patents. October 1997 Examination of Witnesses PROFESSOR ADAMS and Dr JouNn Ret, Intellectual Property Institute, called in and were examined. Chairman The nature of this afternoon is supposed to be 1. Professor Adams and Dr Reid, thank you very educational for Members of the Committee. Although much for coming this afternoon, and thank you for we have read your written submissions, I would be the Intellectual Property Institute’s written submission. _ grateful if you did not assume too much knowledge on