The Community Patent reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Community Patent

The Community Patent is a patent law measure being debated within the European Union, which would allow individuals and companies to obtain a unique patent title throughout all European Union countries. At the moment, there is no unique patent title which can be obtained and enforced in the European Union.

The Community Patent should not be confused with European patents which are granted under the European Patent Convention. European patents, once granted, become a bundle a nationally-enforceable patents, in the designated states, making them expensive to enforce.

Early proposal: Community Patent Convention

Work on a Community Patent started in the 1970s, but the resulting Community Patent Convention (CPC) was a failure. The Luxembourg Conference on the Community Patent took place in 1975 and the Community Patent Convention was then signed by the 9 member states of the European Economic Community at that time. However the CPC never entered into force. It was not ratified by enough countries.

Current debate: EU Regulation

Renewed efforts from the European Union have now resulted in a Community Patent Regulation. It provides that the patent application would be filed in only one language (English, French or German) and would be handled with and examined by the European Patent Office (this requires a change in the European Patent Convention, which is not that easy to obtain). The claims of the patent, once granted, would then have to be translated into all European Union languages. However, the patent will not be enforceable against an entity until they are provided with a copy of it in their own national language. The Community Patent Regulation will also establish a court holding exclusive jurisdiction to invalidate issued patents; thus, a Community Patent's validity will be the same in all EU member states. This court will be attached to the present European Court of Justice and Court of First Instance through use of provisions in the Treaty of Nice.

Discussion regarding the Community Patent had made clear progress in 2003 when a political agreement was reached on March 3, 2003. However, one year later in March 2004 under the Irish presidency, the Competitive Council failed to agree on the details of the Regulation. In particular the time delays for translating the claims and the authentic text of the claims in case of an infringement are still problematic issues.

Support for the Regulation

There is widespread support for the Community Patent as far as it would significantly reduce the translation cost for patents, but many are sceptic about the current political compromise. It would require the translation of the claims (and only the claims) in all the languages of the European Union. For many, it looks like a weird political compromise since the claims are more than often insufficient to clearly understand an invention described in a patent and one should refer to the description to do so. On the other hand, it is not clear how many scientists in Europe who are reading patents do not understand at least English, French or German (many believe that it would be more realistic and economically viable not to translate Community Patents at all and that it would still largely benefit European economy).

External Links

• Official European Union Community Patent Homepage
• AEL wiki on the Community Patent

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