Patenting issues

Biotechnology in European patents - threat or promise?Over the past decade, few technical fields have attracted more public attention than biotechnology. Advances in medicine, agriculture, environmental engineering and other related areas mean growing numbers of patent applications together with ever more products coming onto the market. At the same time, the debate about the patentability of biotechnological inventions continues.

Nanotechnology in European patents - challenge and opportunityNanotechnology is considered by many to be one of the key technologies of this century, with an expected market volume of EUR 1 trillion in 2015. In 2004, about EUR 8 billion was invested in nanotechnology research and development worldwide.

The London AgreementThe main aim of the London Agreement is to reduce costs by introducing a cost-attractive post-grant translation regime for all European patents. To this end, the states party to the agreement have agreed to waive - entirely or largely - the requirement for translations of already granted patents in their national language.

The European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA)Current law requires patent holders and their competitors to debate patent rights in front of national courts in all countries in which a patent has been violated - a very complicated state of affairs. The solution lies in a European Patent Court. And that, precisely, is the aim of the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), a voluntary agreement remaining to be ratified by member states of the European Patent Organisation.

Patents for software?Computer-Implemented Inventions (CII) are a hot topic in the patent world. While some countries grant patents for all types of software, the patent practice in Europe is a different matter. Here, developers need to show that their invention actually makes a contribution in a technical field.