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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    [Chairman Contd] opposition there, but he was suing at the same time in England and he was suing in England on _ the unamended claim but trying to get rather different claims in the European Patent Office, and the defendants thought that was not playing ball and came along and asked for an order that they should apply to amend in the United Kingdom. I thought I had twisted their arms into doing that and they ended up coming back with both the amended and the unamended claims. (Sir Robin Jacob) You raised also the question of utility models, not really within your current remit, but I think all the English judges and I think Jan Brinkhof, with whom I have discussed it, expressed alarm at the whole of the utility model proposal. 246. I have not yet met anyone who does not in this country. (Sir Nicholas Pumfrey) It is very unsatisfactory. 247. Certainly the representatives of industry whom we had said that the notion of an unexamined right of that kind was horrifying. (Sir Robin Jacob) Yes, and it will not help smaller chaps, which is what the theory is. The big chaps will have armies of people taking them out. It will close the little chaps down. (Sir Hugh Laddie) For what it is worth, I should point out that I can see the current patent system being used for exactly this purpose. I remember not too many years ago I had a case in relation to one particular type of device where one company had secured a major dominant position in the market and it patented everything. It was a piece of electronic equipment which is used in supermarket checkout stations and they patented absolutely everything. They had dozens of patents and of the two that I was faced with, one of them was for including an electrical switch on the handle and they kept that hanging over my client’s head for nearly three years. They had frightened off a lot of other people, not just on that one but on lots of other ones as well. At least there is some form of checking for patents. If you had no checking, the sky is the limit. (Sir Nicholas Pumfrey) Particularly if the suggestion is, as it is in the Directive, that the criteria for validity should be in some way not very well defined, lower than the patent requirements unexamined. 248. That is the proposal. (Sir Nicholas Pumfrey) And the lower threshold for a monopoly even for six years is inviting essentially oppressive behaviour. You asked about the doctrine of the exhaustion of rights and partial coverage. As I understand it, this is a question about partial coverage, non-application? 249. I think so, yes. The suggestion was that non-application amounted to consent. (Sir Nicholas Pumfrey) There is a respectable run of academic opinion that this could conceivably amount to exhaustion of rights. One’s feeling is that if the question is ever referred to the ECJ, it will receive a dusty answer. 250. I did not believe it as a proposition at first but I am told it is in circulation. (Sir Nicholas Pumfrey) It is in circulation. (Sir Robin Jacob) Yes, but you have to be told it. (Sir Nicholas Pumfrey) And you have to be told it, but I think the proper answer is that everybody’s instinctive reaction is the correct one. Chairman] Thank you very much. It was very kind of you to have come and most helpful.