15/01/2010
Cost-benefit analysis of the community patent
In December last year the EU Council has agreed on a number of conclusions on the main features of the Community Patent and the EU Patents Court. In the same month Jérôme Danguy and Bruno van Pottelsberghe published a working paper analysing the costs and benefits of the Community Patent. The main conclusion of the paper is that with a sensible level of fees the Community Patent should be beneficial for the business sector, the European Patent Office (EPO) and most of the National Patent Offices (NPOs), mainly due the abolition of translations and the avoidance of paralel litigations. Patent attorneys, lawyers specialised in patent litigation and translators would stand to lose part of their income, whereas both the EPO and the NPOs would risk to lose some of their power. According to the authors this provides an explanation for the observedresistance to the Community Patent.