After 50 years, Europe gets one patent to rule them all
New European Patent Organisation will apply patents to 25 nations
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Patent trolls have a new bridge to hide under, after the European Union (EU) today announced that it will now offer applicants the chance to win a single patent spanning 25 member nations.
The EU has been haggling over this issue for more than 50 years - a unified patent system was one of the EU's founding aspirations, while a 1973 agreement languished - and is proclaiming the new decision as “good news for EU economy and especially for European small and medium enterprises.”
The reasoning behind that assertion is that explained in the FAQ about the new regime, which states “maintaining a European patent for ten years in only six European countries can be four times more expensive than it would be in the US, Japan and many other advanced economies.” Those high costs come from the fact that would-be registrants need to file for a patent all over Europe, incurring legal and application fees, plus translation costs, in each jurisdiction.
Costs, the EU says, can reach €36,000, of which up to €23,000 can go on translation fees. The new regime will mean patent applications “will cost a minimum of €4,725, when the new rules are fully implemented, up to a maximum of €6,425. The costs for translation will range from €680 to €2,380.”
The lower translation fees will come about because the new regime will allow applications from anywhere inside the EU to go straight to the European Patent Organisation (EPO), which will accept patent applications in English, German or French. The EPO will assess the application. A new unified patent court will then assess patent disputes.
The EU is keen to point out that the current patent system is a mess, as “To enforce or to revoke today's European Patent may entail multiple legal proceedings in various countries. The decisions of the new patent court, by contrast, will apply in all participating EU member states.”
That new arrangement, it is hoped, will make that a thing of the past.
But the announcement also suggests the new regime will also work rather nicely for patent trolls, as it points out that today “Due to the lack of a unified litigation system, this leads to parallel lawsuits in different countries, sometimes with divergent outcomes. Currently, between 146 and 311 patent infringement cases are being duplicated annually in the EU member states. In 2013, this number is likely to rise to between 202 and 431 duplicated cases.”
But with just one court in which to pursue cases, trolls seem to now have a one-stop shop, and a well-priced one at that, in which to pursue their claims.
The new regime comes into force on 1 January 2014, “ or after thirteen contracting states ratify it, provided that UK, France and Germany are among them.” Spain and Italy aren't playing nicely at this stage, but “could decide to join in at any time.” ®
COMMENTS
Re: But for one reason or another...
They are especially pissed-off that English has become the world's lingua franca, and will refuse any thing being done only in English on a matter of pure reflex.
Then we must fight back. Get the OED to eliminate the term "lingua franca", and replace it with "lingua angla" or something equally silly. And while we're at it, we could paint "AAA" on the white cliffs of Dover in letters two hundred feet high.*
* Better use water colour in preparation for being stripped of our rating next year, mind you.
Oh, yes
" trolls seem to now have a one-stop shop, and a well-priced one at that, in which to pursue their claims."
That's not how I read it. Currently a troll can simply file a case in multiple jursidictions. They only need to win one to more than cover the expenses incurred from all their filings. From the patent trolls' point of view, the more jurisdictions, the better, since if they're denied in one jurisdiction they'll just open a new case somewhere else.
If a unified EU patent can only be contested once, and the resulting ruling is binding all through the EU, it will reduce the amount of litigation. Of course trolls still have somewhere to operate and trivial patents can still be possibly granted, but let's burn the trolls under that bridge when we come to it.
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