Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said: "A single
patent will slash the costs of patent coverage while guaranteeing a
high level of protection. Such a Community Patent will provide an
important competitive tool to European industry and notably SMEs in
the age of the new economy."
At present, patents are awarded either on a national basis or
through the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich, which grants
so-called European Patents. These are essentially a bundle of
national patents. The EPO offers a single application and granting
procedure and so saves the applicant the trouble of having to file
with a series of national patent offices. But each Member State may
still require that, in order to be legally valid in their
territory, the European Patent must be translated into their
official languages. Moreover, in the case of disputes, it is
national courts that are competent so that, in principle, there can
be 15 different legal proceedings, with different procedural rules
in every Member State and with the risk of different outcomes.
The costs of translation mean that it is currently significantly
more expensive to patent an invention in Europe than it is in the
US or Japan. When added to the potential inconvenience of working
with a variety of different legal systems in case of dispute, the
current system is a significant barrier to research, development
and innovation.
Under the Commission's new proposal for a Council Regulation,
Community Patents would be issued by the European Patent Office.
National and European Patents would co-exist with the Community
Patent system, so that inventors would be free to choose which type
of patent protection best suited their needs.
According to Commission figures, at present, a typical European
Patent (to apply in eight Member States) costs approximately
£31,500, of which 25% of the cost relates to translation costs. To
cover all 15 member states, translation costs for all eleven EU
official languages are enormous. By comparison, in the US,
obtaining a patent costs approximately £6,500 and in Japan,
£10,400. Under the new Community Patent, the patent need only be in
English, French or German and a small part of it (defining the
patent’s scope of protection) translated into each of the other two
languages.
