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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    [Chairman Contd] our part. What we want to do is really to be instructed as to what are the problems which are involved. You have an agenda, on which the legal secretary prepared questions we would like to ask, but is there anything that you would wish to say in advance of that before we tackle these? (Dr Reid) Would it be useful to say something about the IP Institute, very briefly? 2. Yes, certainly. (Dr Reid) We are a research body, not in terms of bricks or mortar, but in terms of getting research done on important IP issues and trying also to get economic issues addressed in our world, as well as the more usual legal ones. We have very good contacts with the professions, of course, and with industry, and we are trying to widen our circle to consumer bodies, etcetera. (Professor Adams) We run the ESRC DTI IPI research programme into intellectual property. I thought I would provide a brochure on that. 3. Thank you very much. May we start with the basics. If you could tell us, first of all, what is involved in a European patent; and, secondly, what would be involved in a Community patent, were it to come into existence. (Dr Reid) In a way, the European patent is a misnomer. The European patent system was brought into place to simplify procedures leading to the grant of national patents. So, at the end of the day, after you have filed for a patent application and have gone through the European procedure, which basically is in Munich, you get a bundle of national patents. You choose, both at the stage of filing the application and the transfer to what is called the national phase, in which countries you want to have a patent. That choice is usually determined by the applicant’s commercial interests, balanced with the costs involved. 4. What are the costs involved? (Dr Reid) Extremely heavy compared with a United States patent. In fact, it is 10 to 20 times, depending on how you do your measurements asserted. A figure which has been given and accepted by the European Patent Office is that if you want to have, through the European route, a bundle of patents in five countries, one is talking about, say, £50,000 for the lifetime of the patents. 5. Forgive me for interrupting, the £50,000 is what you pay the EPO? It has nothing to do with what you pay your own advisors? (Dr Reid) No, it is including what you pay your own advisors. It is for getting the patent application through the European system, including the average costs of the advice, professional time, etcetera. It does not include litigation. I think that somewhat larger figures might come into the picture. 6. So £50,000 is for getting the five countries. What would be a comparable United States figure? (Dr Reid) Obviously the big thing is that you only get one patent. That leads to the Community patent, but you are talking about a very, very much lower figure. It could be as low as £3,000. 7. And what would it cost to get a patent for all 18 countries? (Dr Reid) You terrify me, my Lord. I think one would have to do a figure based on the £50,000 so it would be £120,000, something like that, but you can hear that I am _ guessing rather than quoting established figures. 8. Because no-one ever does. (Dr Reid) People do. In some commercial areas, in pharmaceuticals it happens. It turns on your commercial interests. But then, the costs would turn also on the length of the patent specification. These things are not quite as precise as one would hope. Lord Wigoder 9. Are these applicants, on the whole, substantial organisations, or can they be people of comparatively limited resources? (Dr Reid) It would be good if they could be people of limited resources but as my Lord Chairman has already brought out, there is the cost aspect, and any advisor of a person of very limited resources would have to say that the European route is not on, just on financial terms. Chairman 10. What would be the cost of getting a national patent in Britain? (Dr Reid) Through to expiry, a reasonably large figure. Again, I am guessing, but at the important period of getting a patent granted you are talking about hundreds. Those are the Patent Office costs. The professional fees then turn on the length of the specification, etcetera, etcetera, but one could be talking about £2,000 and perhaps quite a bit higher. 11. So the person of limited means would go first for a United Kingdom patent, and then if he was doing well he would think of going for a European one? (Dr Reid) But he only has the one-year priority period to take a decision on whether he goes for other countries; for instance, the United States. A point that your Lordships should appreciate is that if he goes for the USA, which is a very big market, he is getting that very big market for a much lower price than he would get in Europe. 12. Right. So that is the European patent. Now, what would be a Community patent? (Dr Reid) Perhaps I should bring up one further point on the Europe patent. It is not a Community instrument. It is a Convention outside the European system. It has countries that are not members of the European Union. That is a quite a large factor if Europe ever gets to the stage of introducing a unitary patent, a Community patent. One would have thought that there will have to be some sound links between the two systems. That, legally, would be complex. 13. The ones outside it are Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Monaco, is that correct? They make up the 18. (Dr Reid) Yes.
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