Detailed proposals for greater protection of European patents
A conference on 28 October organised by the Danish EU Presidency will hear in-depth proposals for a new European patent insurance scheme to offer increased protection to inventors and innovators. The idea comes in response to the problem of EU patents being openly violated by companies who calculate that the holder of the patent has neither the resources nor expertise to mount the necessary legal challenge. As Henrik Dahl Sørensen, Deputy Director of the Danish Patent and Trademark Office explains: 'The problem is that even though the inventor holds a patent that is supposed to protect him from blatant theft of the idea, in many cases it is extremely difficult and costly to prosecute the enterprise that violates the patent. This keeps many small and medium-sized enterprises from pursuing their case.' To try and avoid such situations in future, the Danish Presidency has proposed the patent insurance scheme, and the idea will be discussed further at the conference in Aalborg at the end of October. Discussion will be based upon the findings of an EU Commission survey carried out on the issue, and a detailed model for the scheme drafted by a group of experts. It is vital that the initiative is implemented at a European level, because individual Member States have an insufficient number of patents to make national insurance schemes viable. It is felt that a European scheme would ensure that premiums remain affordable, and would act as a strong deterrent to intellectual property theft. 'A European patent insurance scheme would function like a burglar alarm,' said Mr Sørensen. 'If the intellectual property thieves know that they will be prosecuted for infringing competitors' patents, they are more likely to resist the temptation.' Such a move would also benefit the EU as a whole, as entrepreneurs would be encouraged to produce innovative products, secure in the knowledge that their investment in research and development will not be wasted by another company's patent violation. Innovation and entrepreneurship are both seen as key to European growth and prosperity. A clearer picture of the structure of the patent insurance scheme should emerge after the Aalborg conference. Participants at the event, entitled 'growth, prosperity and patents', will discuss a number of other topical issues relating to European intellectual property rights policy.