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Legislative Initiatives in European patent law
1. Further developments of the European Patent Convention (EPC)
A proposal for a revision of the EPC with the aim of ensuring the organisational autonomy of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) has been discussed in the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation.
2. Reduction of translation costs and improved framework for the litigation of European patents
Two Intergovernmental Conferences (Paris 1999 and London 2000) have addressed the two major problems faced by users after the grant of a European patent:
- the high costs of translating the full patent specification into the national languages of the States where the patent shall take effect and
- the absence of a common European litigation scheme to deal with infringement and validity of European patents.
So far, the outcome of the reform initiatives at intergovernmental level is
- the London Agreement on the application of Article 65 EPC, which entered into force on 1 May 2008 and
- the draft European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA).
3. Community patent
Within the framework of the European Union, the Community patent was re-launched in August 2000 when the Commission published a proposal for a Regulation on the Community patent. Negotiations in the Council of the European Union are still ongoing.