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Friday, November 18, 2005

Trilateral Meeting of Heads of Patent Offices held in Munich.

At their annual trilateral conference, the European Patent Office (EPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) have in particular agreed to enhance their co-operation by further streamlining their procedures and common technical tools. The three Offices signed a Memorandum of Understanding which aims at increasing the efficiency of the patenting process and better exploiting the work performed by each office using common technical tools and harmonised procedures. A

Press Pelease has been published.

"[...] In view of the strong patent usage by Japanese and US companies in their home markets Alain Pompidou urged long-due reforms in the European patent system: " The adoption of the London Agreement would reduce the translation cost for European patents by 50% for the applicants. This money could be reinvested in the innovation process. With the European Patent Litigation Agreement, the EPLA, we have an attractive solution ready for the litigation problem in Europe. It could be implemented with a Diplomatic Conference to be requested by our member states. Both reforms would remove important hurdles to using the European patent system, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises." [...]"

It does not really come as a surprise that anti-patent groups seem to share

some different points of view.

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