Standards Of Patentability For European Inventions

Why does society allow, or even encourage, private appropriation of inventions? When do patents encourage competition, when do they hamper it? These questions and many more are addressed by two eminent scholars in this groundbreaking analysis of the economic foundations of the European patent system.

The pharmaceutical industry and patent legislation are inextricably linked. Pharmaceutical companies could not exist without some guarantee that they can recoup the cost of developing a new product. European patent law offers this opportunity, as it allows companies to exclude competition for a specific product for a fixed time scale. In Pharmaceutical Patents in Europe the current legal patent situation is examined by a detailed analysis of case law from the European Patent Office (EPO), the international body created with the signing of the European Patent Convention (EPC). Aspects of European patent law not primarily regulated in the EPC, for example Supplementary Protection Certificates and infringement matters, are examined in the setting provided by EC law and domestic laws of European states. This book is written for the reader who understands the main characteristics of patent law and is looking for a practitioner's text on the European pharmaceutical patent law scene. Moreover, the author's remarks can help all readers to look at the field with fresh eyes.

Although the pivotal role of the inventiveness requirement in patent law is broadly accepted, it has long remained an ill-defined concept, and in current debates the question is often raised whether the requirement is capable of functioning as an adequate ‘gate-keeper’. By providing a broad and historical perspective on the inventiveness concept in patent law, this groundbreaking work lays a very thorough conceptual basis for further and more in-depth discussions on current standards of inventiveness. In a method guided by geography and chronology, the author weaves developments in numerous countries – focusing primarily on the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands – into a fullscale analysis of the inventiveness concept. Among the questions raised and examined are the following: - How do industrial–economic considerations influence the requirement? - Are there different doctrinal ‘schools of thought’ that can be distinguished? - Should the current requirement stay in close relationship with its predecessors or is it fundamentally different? - Which socio-economic and political forces have influenced or diverted the evolution of the requirement? - What are the most conspicuous similarities and dissimilarities among the jurisdictions under examination? And how can they be explained? - To what extent is the ‘inventive step’ requirement applied in a uniform manner within the European Patent Convention area? - To what extent has the enormous recent growth of patent grants been brought about by relaxation of the inventiveness requirement? This book provides crucially important fundamental commentary for lawyers, jurists, and scholars coming to grips with a hugely complex legal phenomenon: the dramatic growth worldwide in recent years of patents as instruments for the protection of industrial property. Particularly welcome in these times of intensifying scrutiny of patent law, this incomparable analysis will quickly become a cornerstone resource for intellectual property lawyers, patent officers, in-house counsel in multinational manufacturing companies, and other interested practitioners.

Nanotechnology has experienced an accelerated development during the last 20 years. The newness of the topic - combined with the high potential of the technology in terms of capacity to impact people's lives and the business universe expected to be generated - has produced extensive discussions and controversy, inviting debate on the social, economic, ethical, and legal aspects of nanotechnology, as well as its development, implementation, and use. The economic benefit that is promised to the owners - or those controlling the knowledge and inventions around nanotechnology - has encouraged them to follow aggressive strategies with the intention of obtaining exclusive benefits by the legal appropriation of those developments. This legal appropriation is partially pursued by the filing of patent applications. This LL.M. thesis analyzes such strategies, particularly the way in which applicants are trying to get broad protection of their inventions and the impact this may generate on the possibility of promoting further development of the technology by universities and other companies. LL.M. Thesis.

As a result of the incorporation of computer software into countless commercial and industrial products, the patentability of software has become a vital issue in intellectual property law. This indispensable book provides an overview on the current status of computer-implemented inventions in patent law across Europe and major jurisdictions worldwide. A hugely practical field research tool with guidance based on case law, it examines the major hurdles in each particular country and describes the best practice to be adopted. Clearly showing how enforceable software patent applications can be competitively drafted and how a patent portfolio for computer-implemented inventions can be established in several countries without spending money unnecessarily on problematic examination proceedings, this book covers such issues and topics as the following: • claim categories for patent applications; • sufficient level of abstraction/breadth of the claimed invention; • fundamental terms of computing and terminological traps; • probability for patents dependent on software application areas; and • patents in core areas of computing. With separate chapters for the key countries, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, China, Korea, Japan, India, and the European Patent Office the legal situation for computer-implemented inventions in each country or region, this book includes guidance on prosecution under national law, analyses of relevant court decisions, practice checklists, and an outlook on future developments.. The authors describe claim formulation based on actual cases and on principles of computer science in order to show what might be or might not be patentable in each jurisdiction. With this incomparable resource, patent attorneys and patent professionals in companies will get a basis for making decisions about the most appropriate jurisdictions in which to file patent applications. This book will also be of great value to computer professionals who are affected by the protection of software or who are actively involved in the protection of software by patent law.