|
|
European Patents Court and EU patent - now in reach!
On December 4, 2009, EU Ministers in the Competitiveness Council agreed on the main points for an EU patent court and now await an opinion from the European Court of Justice in that regard. The Council furthermore agreed how to progress on an EU patent.
For decades there have been numerous attempts to create an EU patent which repeatedly failed due to disputes over languages. The progress towards an EU patent that has now been achieved is to remove the language issue from the broad legislation into a separate resolution. The EU parliament can now proceed to debate the patent proposals minus the language issue.
Today, a European Patent is extremely expensive because of the requirement for translations. Translation costs were somewhat reduced in 2008 through the London Agreement. But the reduction was insufficient, and did nothing to address the requirement to pay annual fees to each national patent office where the European Patent is validated.
But of course the greatest cost is infringement and/or invalidation proceedings in the courts of European countries, where results in the same matter can vary from one country to the other. Thus the creation of an EU patent court can mean reduced costs and increased certainty.
The EU patents court will hasten the creation of an EU patent. But of course this requires a solution to the language issue.
For patentees these future changes will mean greater certainty in Europe, a faster process and lower costs.
Groth is watching this question particularly and is happy to help if you have questions. Contact Jan Stein at jan.stein@groth.eu or +46 (0)70 675 65 37.
This subject will be included in our The Patent Day seminar on April 15, 2010. We might have more information to give our readers then.
<< Back
|
|
|
|