COMMENT
Upcoming changes in European patent law and their effects on the European rail industry
Steven Charlton of Venner Shipley LLP, European patent and trademark attorneys, argues that changes to the European patent landscape present an excellent business opportunity.
U
pcoming changes in European patent law will enable companies to more cost-
effectively protect their position within the supply chain to the European rail industry.
Due to the requirement for EU-wide interoperability and harmonisation of technical standards, developments made by companies supplying the European rail industry are increasingly capable of being used throughout the EU. In other words, once a development has been approved for use in one EU country, little or no alteration is required for it to be approved for use in other EU countries.
It may therefore be advantageous for companies to patent their developments in a number of EU countries to maximise their share of the European market. This is taken seriously by rail industry players; last year over 400 European patent applications were fi led relating specifi cally to railway technology.
A common misunderstanding is that the European Patent Offi ce grants pan-European patents – this is not the case. Briefl y, if it
considers a company’s technology to be patentable, the company can validate a European patent for that technology in countries of interest and will end up with separate patent rights in each of those countries.
For example, a company desiring to protect business interests in the UK and France will end up with national patent rights in the UK and,
separately, national patent rights in France.
The more EU countries in which patent protection is sought, the more it will cost to obtain those patent rights. For instance, at the grant stage of a European patent application, to secure patent rights in all EU countries, it would not be unusual for costs to exceed £24,000 (although the cost is much lower if protection in only a handful of EU countries is desired).
Positively, however, when upcoming changes in European patent law come into effect (expected to be late 2015 or 2016) it will become much cheaper for companies to protect
their developments throughout Europe using patents. This is because it will be possible, for the fi rst time, to obtain a single patent, known as a ‘unitary patent’, which has effect across almost the whole of the EU, with the exception of a small number of countries that have not yet fully signed up to the agreement.
Although the precise cost has not yet been set, the unitary patent will eliminate the costs associated with validating in individual countries, so it will inevitably become much cheaper to obtain pan-European patent protection.
These imminent changes to the patent landscape provide an excellent opportunity for companies to use patents to more cost effectively protect their position in the European rail supply chain.
Steven Charlton
E:
scharlton@vennershipley.co.uk FOR MORE INFORMATION
Information management improves efficiency
Steve Brown, business development director at the transport technology provider Tracsis plc, explores ways in which relatively simple software can improve productivity within rail operations.
R
ail companies have tended to adopt a ‘fi refi ghting’ approach to information
capture and management, and reporting and communication of performance. This has resulted in poor data quality and time consuming recording and reporting, including poorly tailored levels of data provision with no audit trail or ownership of incidents and actions.
One of the most common problems encountered is the planning and control of rolling stock movements, or fl eet diagramming. To address this problem, Tracsis has developed a comprehensive specialised rolling stock planning tool with extensive reporting functionality.
Importantly, this does not replace the skill of the human planner but does reduce the repetitive nature of the work, reduces errors and massively simplifi es the wealth of reporting
28 | rail technology magazine Jun/Jul 14
and publishing of data that is required by the planning offi ce. This new software, TRACS- RS, was offi cially launched in February this year and is already seeing substantial take-up among operators and planners.
Understanding the current fl eet situation leads fi lters through into the planning of train crew, an area in which Tracsis already has signifi cant expertise through its well-known TRACS scheduling software. The panacea is to achieve real-time control of train crew and although optimisation of this remains beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful software, decision support tools can again hugely increase the power of the controller to take centralised, effi cient decisions.
Many operators are now adopting specialist Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, such as Tracsis’ Compass, which is designed specifi cally to centralise and manage the fl ow
of information within the business, and to tailor the level of information provided to both frontline and senior managers. This software can directly improve users’ effi ciency and operational costs, as its ease of use means that fewer dedicated resources are required than for manual paper-based processes or even those using, for example, spreadsheets.
The software is accessible from mobile devices such as smartphones and via the web, making it globally accessible for frontline staff.
Steve Brown FOR MORE INFORMATION
Steve Brown, Business Development Director, Tracsis plc T: +44(0)1332 226 860 E:
info@tracsis.com W:
www.tracsis.com
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