Re: [Patents] European patent

[Erik Josefsson <erikjosefsson@telia.com>]

On 04 Mar 2003 10:07:07 +0100
Stefano Maffulli <stef@zoomata.com> wrote:

> http://ue.eu.int/pressData/en/intm/74752.pdf

> Is this agreement already a main pain-in-the-butt for us or it was
> expected and it's not that big of a news?

I don't know yet, I'm reading... I just found this paragraph, it's
hilarious:

"4.2 Renewal fees for Community Patents will be payable to the EPO,
which will keep 50 percent to cover its costs, including the costs of
searches carried out by NPOs. The remaining 50 percent will be
distributed among the NPOs of the Community Member States in accordance
with a distribution key, which will be decided by the Council."

"keep 50%", what a bargain ;-)

Is that not also a very "ad hoc" share? Why 50%? Would not a share
related to the true costs bee something like a three digit number,
like 45.3%? The deal seems to indicate nobody knows what the
Collossus in Munich really has for lunch.

Perhaps this is good, because there will be some sort of public
controle of the internal financial system of the EPO.

Now we also need to know the anticipated costs of litigation of
Community Patents. Here is an US-pat approximation:

http://www.pearlltd.com/content/pat_inf_law.html

How could Europe possibly be able to beat that US-efficiency?

//Erik