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
Catalogue details

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 {Chairman Contd] one, the litigation system and secondly, the cost; in particular, the translation regime. 30. The translation cost. This was because the proposal was that you had to translate into every language of every member in order to get your patent at all? (Dr Reid) Correct. 31. That is easy to understand. Can you explain to us the litigation proposals. (Dr Reid) The Luxembourg Convention has it that any invalidity decision is an invalidity decision for the Community patent. That is logical. The concern that industry had—and has about the current proposal for that matter—is that such a decision could be taken poorly; would not be a sound judgment. 32. This is the spectre of some county court judge in Portugal who has a patent case once every three years, revoking an important patent with effect for the whole Community? (Dr Reid) Correct. The interested circles have asserted very strongly that they would not use the system. It does not prove they would not but it has certainly been said very strongly. 33. That is the main objection? (Dr Reid) Yes. Translation, for instance the costs, is a major factor, but is not as important. 34. What are the various suggestions in play in relation to translation? (Dr Reid) To go back to the European Patent Office, at present that system works on three languages: English, French and German. So one possibility for a new system is that it works only in those three. There are proposals and have been for many years—at one time accepted in the Luxembourg Convention—that there should only be _ limited translation. There have been proposals that there should only be translation when an action is contemplated, for example when litigation is started, or at the stage when the infringing party is informed of possible infringement. This would be the necessary conditions for a translation to be required. 35. In those circumstances, which would count as the authentic version? (Dr Reid) We all reach back to what the European Patent Convention says. This is the language of the proceedings of the grant of the patent. So if the European Patent Office has used French in the procedure it granted, which is at the instigation of the applicant, then the French text is the authoritative text. Most people would simply assume that the same would apply under the Community patent translation regime. 36. So if you then commence proceedings in Spain, you would gain nothing by hiring a clever Spanish translator to soup up your patent? (Dr Reid) Correct. You might run a risk because if the scope of the patent, in the translated form, is less than in the original, then the infringer can rely on the narrower scope of the translation. It sounds obscure but it really is fair. If your language is Spanish and the text that you are given in Spanish has a narrower interpretation, you should be able to rely on that. Lord Goodhart 37. If you were in a Spanish court and assuming that the judges did not understand French, they might find competing experts arguing about what the correct interpretation into Spanish was. (Dr Reid) Yes. Some of the other suggestions are that there should be official translations into the various languages. There should be centralised translation at somebody’s expense, be it the public’s or the applicant’s. There are suggestions that the translation should be on demand with payment of a reasonable threshold figure, so that one has to think before asking for this translation. The translation is then available for all other people who want to make use of the translation, and the translation should otherwise be funded from renewal fee income that the national Patent Offices receive. That is under the European Patent Convention. Chairman 38. So we have a large menu of possible choices there. Could you tell us which one you would go for? (Dr Reid) With some diffidence, because we are sitting here in England, we would support what rather amazingly has been pushed very strongly by the Germans and the French, and that is the English only option. Lord Goodhart 39. Even the French? (Dr Reid) Yes. French industry has pushed that very strongly. (Professor Adams) May I add something to that. The present figures for filings in the European Patent Office are approximately as follows: 7 per cent in French, 28 per cent in Germany, 65 per cent in English. (Dr Reid) Those are the only three options. Whatever French industry may say, it is extremely difficult to see the French Government ever agreeing to this. However French Government representatives have sat with their heads gently down when French private practice, the professionals, have argued very, very vigorously against their industry colleagues. The Government representatives perhaps do not agree with the professions arguments against English only. Chairman 40. What would be your second choice? (Dr Reid) The three language solution but in any choice—and perhaps the more fundamental point that I have not brought out—translation only at the litigation stage. Lord Wedderburn of Charlton 41. Those figures you kindly gave us as to the breakdown of the use of language with English starting so high, that would include quite a few presumably