EUROPE / PATENTS / COMMUNITY PATENT

Managing Intellectual Property, September 2000

A Glimpse of the Future: Proposals for a Community Patent

Richard Taylor

In this article, the author concentrates on two main points: the scope of the proposed patent tribunal and the effect on national patents and European patents respectively of introducing a Community Patent system. First, however, he sets out the principal features of the system as he sees it: the validity of a single patent throughout the European Union; the role of the European Patent Office in granting it; the use of English, French or German for grant and publication; the establishment of a Community Patent Tribunal within the framework of the Court of Justice of the European Communities; and the co-existence of the Community Patent with national and European patents. The author queries the location of the Tribunal, whether centralised or regionalised; the powers of the Tribunal and its relationship to the national courts; the composition of the Tribunal; and the rules and procedures which the Tribunal will be likely to adopt. In the author’s opinion, the introduction of a Community Patent is unlikely to jeopardise the continued use of national patents; but, in the long run, he believes that the European Patent will become redundant. For the time being, the European Patent may be useful to cover states which are not part of the Community system; from the applicant’s point of view, it is hard to see why he should choose a European Patent when a Community Patent is available. The author points out that the Community Patent is planned to be in place by the end of 2001; and he concludes by saying that "if the Tribunal is successful, then its powers will be extended (or parallel tribunals on the same model created) to make pan-European decisions on other areas of intellectual property, including copyright, designs and utility models". [20032]