The European Patent With Unitary Effect – A Unitary Patent Protection for a Unitary Market?

Abstract

Abstract-As patent protection is in principle attributed on a national level, it is susceptible to create a fragmented EU market and barriers to the free movement of goods. A purely national patent law and policy do therefore not mirror the objective of an EU Internal Market. In December 2012, the EU legislator adopted Regulation No 1257/2012 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection. Rather than drawing up a Regulation covering comprehensively the substantive law of the unitary patent, the Regulation arranges for a multi-layer patent protection consisting of public international law, especially the European Patent Convention, diverse national laws of the Member States and the Regulation itself. This leads to legal uncertainty and confusion. The Regulation brings about some advancement for the free movement of goods by eliminating national markets where products can be marketed without EU-wide exhaustion and by aligning acquisition, limitation, revocation and lapse throughout the participating Member States. Regrettably, the concept is not carried through in the area of licensing, which remains one of the neuralgic points of the area of tension between patent rights and the free movement of goods.

Human stem cells patents—Emerging issues and challenges in Europe, United States, China, and Japan

“…Thus, there is a trend for a global “uniformization” of European patents laws in the field of biotechnological inventions although a European patent relied on the EPC framework and a national patent relied on both the Directive 98/44/EC and on national law implementing it. While the articulation between the different kinds of patents, notably with the future unitary patent, and patent laws in Europe are raising lots of concern (Kaesling, ; Kaisi, ; Mahne, ; Pila & Wadlow, ; Plomer, ), what is going beyond the patentability of inventions based on human stem cells is not considered in this article.…”

Bold and newly Independent, or Isolated and Cast Adrift? The Implications of Brexit for Intellectual Property Law and Policy

“…With regard to patents, a measure supported by the UK was the creation (by enhanced co‐operation) of the EU ‘unitary’ patent and specialized court (Barnier, ), which would allow for the granting of a patent with automatic validity in the entirety of the EU, excluding Spain, which opted out of the regime (West et al , , p. 105). This system would run alongside the existing national patent grants or ‘bundle of patents’ that could be sought by firms under the European Patent Convention through the EPO, an international organization outwith the EU system which the UK will remain party to subsequent to EU withdrawal (for more on the functioning of the patent, see Christou, ; see also Kaesling, ). The UK was instrumental in securing the patent, particularly in the Council of the European Union (Pagenberg, ), and perhaps more importantly, one of the central divisions of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) was to be situated in London, under Article 7 of the UPC Agreement.…”

Brexit and Scotland: Centralism, Federalism or Independence?

“…18, p. 936). 24 The unitary patent protection is, however, not autonomous but based on the Member States’ national laws 25 and the EPC 26 . The EU Regulation establishing the unitary patent protection through enhanced cooperation 27 is an EU-mantle which gives the non-EU instruments the effect of EU legislation.…”