The European Patent Convention was signed in 1973, and forms the legal basis for the European Patent Organisation (EPO) and the European Patent Office. In 1977, as a member of the EPO, the UK passed the Patents Act, which implemented the Convention and is still the legislation governing patents in the UK today.
However, following a revision to the Convention in November 2000, the Department of Trade and Industry has been consulting on how best to implement these changes into UK law. The result – the Patents Act (Amendment) Bill – was published on Friday.
The main changes will:
enable the Patent Office to provide an independent non-binding opinion on patent validity or infringement to settle disputes over patent rights without parties having to resort to expensive litigation;
bring UK patent law into line with the revised European Patent Convention to reduce bureaucracy and make it simpler for UK businesses to operate across Europe;
modernise UK patent law to be more responsive to customers' needs by, for example, allowing the Patent Office to make amendments to application forms without amending regulations; and
modify existing protection for alleged infringers to encourage out-of-court settlement of disputes whilst still deterring patent owners from making unreasonable allegations of infringement.
The publication comes a few weeks after the issuing of a DTI Innovation report, which highlighted the importance of a modern and efficient patents system.
