Time for a European Patent?

Protecting new inventions is vital, everyone agrees – but most also agree that the system that has evolved, piece by piece and region by region, to accomplish that aim globally is in need of serious overhaul. Getting a patent for all the European Countries is costly, and a political solution remote. The US and Japan face huge backlogs. Protection in China and other parts of the world remain uncertain. The current international patent process is complex and costly. New technologies – stem cells, software, the Internet – raise legal quandaries that the patent authorities are only gradually resolving. And the current economic crisis adds new urgency.

There is a need for more IP cooperation at international level, as initiated by the 5 large patent offices around the world (EPO, USPTO, JPO, SIPO and KPO).

So what’s the best way forward? That is the subject of an exclusive Science|Business Policy Bridge meeting with Alison Brimelow, the EPO president and a leading force in the future evolution of our intellectual property regime.

Venue:Mission of Norway to the European Union
21 April 2009, 11:30 to 14:30
1000 Brussels, 17 rue Archimède
Register to attend here: http://www.sciencebusiness.net/bridges/policy/globalpatent2009.php(opens in new window)

For more information, contact terri.robinson@sciencebusiness.net