New system for patent protection

After decades of discussions, the EU institutions have finally launched the European Unity Party. In December, the European Parliament adopted the legislative package agreed with the Council. “It is a milestone in the history that it will in the future be possible to register a patent valid in 25 European countries, because patents are the driving force behind innovation, growth and employment,” explains Dr. Angelika Niebler, Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy in the EU Parliament


Cheap and simple


Until now, patents must be filed with a national patent office or the European Patent Office in Munich. Even then, it must be granted by each Member State in which patent protection is sought and translated into the respective working language of the Member States. "The cost of this approach is ten to twenty times higher than a patent application in the US or China," Niebler reports.


Without Spain and Italy


Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, it is extremely time-consuming and costly to protect their technical inventions in several European Member States at the same time. In the best case, a competitor copies them only, in the worst case he reports them to the patent office and uses the "tactical patent" as a weapon against the actual Inventor in the battle for market shares.


As soon as the new system is fully operational - as scheduled to come into force in January 2017 - a single procedure is sufficient to enforce the patent-based rights across Europe. The uniform EU patent, valid in all 25 participating Member States, can then be applied for at the European Patent Organization (EPO) in Muenschen. Applications must be submitted in German, English or French. If an application is in another language, a translation into one of these three languages ​​must be added.


In addition, the Europaparlament has decided to fully reimburse translation costs for small and medium-sized enterprises, non-profit organizations, universities and public research facilities in the EU. "Not only special rules for the medium-sized businesses to reimburse translation costs, but also additional legal protection in counterfeiting have been implemented by the Parliament", adds Raffaele Baldassarre (EPP, IT) in the Europaparlament responsible for the translation rules of the EU patent protection Code>

Parliament has also ensured that the specific needs of small businesses must be taken into account when determining the annual fees, which represent a large proportion of the total costs, so that they can fully benefit from the cost reductions.


Spain and Italy will not participate in the EU patent, however. They have even filed a case before the European Court of Justice on the basis of the language regulation adopted in the working languages ​​English, French and American of the European Patent Office

"In any case, 77 percent of the patent applications submitted to the European Patent Office are already written in English, and the new regulation provides for the possibility of automatic translations into all EU languages ​​in the near future Therefore, if Italy and Spain also participate in the process, the Tu? R is open to them, "Niebler assures.