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Tuesday, October 03, 2006

EU-Consultation on Follow-Up Study on "The Possible Introduction Of An Insurance Against Costs For Litigation In Patent Cases"

The EU Commission - Internal Market -

communicates:

"[...] Following the first study on patent litigation insurance, commissioned in January 2002 by the Directorate General for Internal Market and Services aiming to analyse the introduction of a patent litigation insurance scheme in Europe, and in the light of the need for definitive conclusions, a follow-up study was commissioned in 2004 with the aim to evaluate on a highly detailed basis, the feasibility of a small number of alternatives schemes of patent litigation insurance. This follow-up study has now been concluded [...].

The Commission is seeking views of all interested parties on this follow-up study and invite them to submit their contributions by 31 December 2006. [...]"

According to the study, patent litigation insurance has long been considered potentially important as a means of ensuring access to patents to small and medium-sized enterprises which do not have extensive legal resources and are put off from developing, patenting or litigating patents on new technologies owing to the expense and complexities in EU patent systems. However, attempts by the private sector to provide such patent litigation insurance have rarely been successful up to now. The purpose of the Study was to evaluate, on a detailed basis, the feasibility of a small number of alternative schemes for insuring European Patents and, when they exist, Community Patents. Experienced insurance executives were consulted as to the information they would require relating to patent litigation in the EU in order to assess underwriting risks and premiums.

The conclusions of the study were:

The status quo does not meet any objectives for a feasible insurance scheme.
The possibilities put forward relating to a possible voluntary scheme were not considered robust and attractive enough to justify further consideration given their obvious disadvantages.
Only a mandatory scheme is viable and can provide the economic and technical benefits to the EU and individual patentees which would arise from a widespread scheme of Patent Litigation Insurance.

The Study is available on-line

here together with

another volume covering various appendices.

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