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INTERNATIONAL / PATENTS / HARMONISATION

Australian Intellectual Property Journal, Volume 12 No.3, February 2001

Patents Without Borders: The Future of Patent Harmonisation

Irene Park

“Recent international developments,” the author writes, “affirm that the future of patent at law lies in global integration.” The author examines these developments and makes her own contribution towards future integration by proposing a model for her united patent system. She draws a distinction between the creation of a single, centralised system for a world patent and a more modest approach, which may consist of regional patent systems or the harmonisation, on a global or regional basis, of national systems. She looks at existing international instruments and in particular at the Paris Convention for the protection of industrial property, 1883 (last revised in 1984); the Patent Cooporation Treaty, 1970; the Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), 1994; the Patent Law Treaty, 2000; and the first and second stages of IMPACT (Information Management for the Patent Cooperation Treaty) in 2000 and 2001 respectively. She sums up the position by observing that patent protection is still “multinational” rather than “international”. She goes on to describe the position in Europe, with particular reference to the European Patent Convention, 1973, and the (unratified) Community Patent Convention, 1975; and she discusses the merits of European proposals, contained in the European Patent Litigation Protocol, 2000, for a supra-national European patent court with its own procedural law and exclusive jurisdiction.  She takes the view that developments in Europe are significant indicators for non-European states as much as for Europeans and builds on this proposition to outline the elements of a united, global patent system.  Her model would incorporate WIPOnet from the current WIPO project, IMPACT, and encompass the following additional features: the united patent office, entrusted with search, examination and the grant of patents; a united court; rules on jurisdiction; a united patent law, based on a few generally accepted principles of patentability; standardisation of prior art examination procedures; simplified translation requirements; and administrative roles.  The author continues with some comments on the position of minor patent nations and on the interests of her own country, Australia, and ends with a reminder that there is increasing international pressure to converge national patent laws. [20048]