EPO
Since his election in July 2010, Benoît Battistelli has overseen procedures as the European Patent Office’s (EPO) top man. In recent months, much of his focus has been on the soon-to-be implemented unitary patent (UP), which his organisation will grant.
Te proposals, initially agreed at the end of last year, were described by Battistelli at the time as a “simple solution for innovators”, but as the UP’s official implementation draws nearer, concerns have been raised about the finer details of exactly what it will encompass and who it will benefit.
At the head of these concerns is costs.
“First and foremost it is necessary for the UP to be attractive, which means the fees should not to be too high,” says Battistelli.
It is feared that renewal fees, which will be used to run the system, could, as a consequence, be too high.
With the unitary patent on the horizon, WIPR spoke to Benoît Battistelli, president of the European Patent Office, about the launch, issues faced at the organisation and his hopes for the future.
Admitting that the scheme would need to
generate enough revenue to cover its own expenses, Battistelli said he was “sensitive” to the cost issue but added that final concrete figures were “some way off”.
“It’s important to be attractive when
compared to the existing European patent,” he said, “For the moment the UP concerns only 25 countries, and we have 13 other EPO members which are not involved in the scheme. Therefore it’s not possible for us to subsidise costs as that would be a breach of rule of equality among member states.
“I have seen some studies but I didn’t feel as though enough have been carried out so I have commissioned my own on the economic impact of the UP, focusing on all the pertinent elements such as cost, revenues and the validation situation of European patents in the member states: in how many countries are the patents validated, and for how many years are they maintained?
“We will present all the data when the information is available, and the member states
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will then take a decision. We will start aſter the summer break, and results should be ready by end of the year.”
Among other criticisms of the scheme are fears that, primarily, large multinational corporations will benefit.
Non-governmental organisation No Patents on Seeds, a collection of
companies and
charities concerned about the filing of patents in the biotechnology sphere, has claimed that multinational companies would use the system as a ‘one-stop shop’ towards gaining a monopoly in Europe, leaving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) behind.
But Battistelli was quick to reject that theory. “People focus too much on the purely financial aspects. Tey forget the administrative burden, which is to manage 10, 15 or 20 different national patents.
“By simplifying the protection with a single protection title for a geographically large area, and only one interlocutor—namely the EPO—you also simplify administrative tasks to a certain extent. I am convinced that SMEs and public research centres and laboratories will benefit. Tey are in the same situation, they don’t have large means and are in high need of good protection.”
However, despite insisting on the scheme’s positive impact on SMEs Battistelli would not divulge the names of specific companies which had indicated an interest.
“Of course we are working closely with companies and users but I don’t want to speak on their behalf,” he said. “It is up to them if they decide to share that information.”
Ahead of the UP’s launch, a key concern at the EPO is to improve the quality of all patents issued at its headquarters.
“We have several measures in place to increase this policy, such as the qualifying of our examiners. Once we hire an examiner we spend three years to train him before he starts working on examination. Tis is a high investment, and I believe we are the only office in the world to do this. Moreover, we work with examining divisions which have three members, whereas in most countries there is only one person.
“We are also currently in the process of setting up a new policy called Raising the Bar,” he said, “this ensures we are more rigorous in our criteria for patentability when making grants.”
Te EPO’s patent granting system was put under the spotlight earlier this year when independent
World Intellectual Property Review September/October 2013 19
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