2009-09-10

"Something will need to be done"

The conclusions in a new paper on European patent litigation ends by citing Joff Wild's article on EPO:s attack on UK judges: "the bottom line is that something will need to be done at
some stage to clarify how European patent law should be interpreted. Whether this is
through a Community patent, a pan-European litigation system, a series of directives or a
combination of them, we cannot have the situation in which different parts of what is
supposed to be a single market either do, or have the ability to do, interpret patent law in
completely different ways. If such a situation does persist, then the entire economic
premise of the European Union is completely undermined. It seems to be that it is that
serious."

And this is where it stands. The problem is the power play that puts patent interpretation outside the reach from the EU. The work in establishing a central court outside EU moving forward.

The paper can be found here:
http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2009-0901-200115/luginbuehl.pdf

I am trying to get through the paper right now. Lots of case-law and other stuff to digest. Missing stuff on UPLS though.