EPO holds Unitary Patent talks in Munich
A European Patent Office (EPO) select committee has begun discussing how much a Unitary Patent (UP) should cost users of the system.
The committee, which comprises representatives from the 25 EU countries that have signed the UP package, met for the first time in Munich last week, according to a blog post on March 25 by EPO president Benoît Battistelli.
Battistelli said the meeting was “very positive”, with the committee tackling one of its main tasks – setting UP fees.
But he said there were three challenges when agreeing prices: the patent must be attractive for its users; it must be self-financed and budget neutral; and the committee must allay concerns that UP renewal fees will be higher the existing European Patent’s (EP).
The EPO will administer UPs, which will co-exist with EPs and provide protection across the 25 signatory countries. Disputes will be handled by a Unified Patent Court (UPC) system across the EU.
The European Parliament and Council both approved the regulations governing the UP deal in December 2012, while EU ministers signed an agreement in February this year that establishes the UPC.
The select committee’s meeting is seen as one of the first major steps towards implementing the UP system, which is supposed to be ready for 2014 – but only if 13 of the signatory members have signed the UPC deal.
Battistelli has said previously that he expects the UP to be about 70 percent cheaper than a current EP designated in 25 member states.
“This is realistic,” said Chris Thornham, partner at Taylor Wessing LLP, adding that the UP’s fees will be an important factor for companies weighing up whether to obtain UP protection.
But he said: “At the moment, small and large companies don’t necessarily maintain EPs in all available countries, because of the cost of the annual renewal fees. Pharmaceutical companies typically maintain patents more comprehensively, but they may prefer to stay out of the UP for a while to see how it goes, rather than putting all their eggs in one basket.”
He added: “UK annual renewal fees start at £70 ($105) and escalate to £600 ($906) in the final year. For a single UP covering Europe, the annual renewal fees could be higher than that. But if they were set at, say, 10 times as much, applicants might choose to save money by maintaining EP national rights in five or so countries, rather than use the UP.”
Once the UP system is up and running, users will be wary of litigation costs and how they relate to renewal fees, which are usually a separate set of costs.
Thornham said: "If there is litigation, separate court fees are payable by the litigants, and I would expect that in the UPC. That is not to be confused with renewal fees collected for maintaining patents. However, if the combination of the UP and UPC is to be self-financing, some of the collected UP renewal fees may be used to pay for the running of the UPC.”
In his blog post, Battistelli confirmed that some of the some of the 25 signatory states have already taken “the first steps” towards ratifying the UPC, and “many are expected to ratify by the end of 2014”.
