The European Union had finally agreed on a joint patent policy, after thirty years of bickering. EU Commissioner Frits Bolkestein welcomes the decision as an important step in the competition with the US and Japan.
A European patent office is already in existence, in Munich, but only eight countries are associated with this office, among them the Benelux countries. When the new patent law becomes operational in 2005, one patent application will suffice for 25 countries. And this will cost half what it costs now: one patent application for eight countries costs 50,000 euros at this moment, it will be æonlyÆ 25,000 euros for the whole of the EU. æIt will still be more expensive than in America or Japan, but it is enormous progressÆ, according to Bolkestein. The money will pay for the translation of the technical conclusions into the three large languages of the EU, English, French, and German.
Special courts to settle disputes will be set up in Luxembourg in 2010. According to the ministry of Economic Affairs an EU-patent court is an important improvement: 'At this moment if patent holders encounter problems, they have to go to court in all countries concerned. That is time consuming, expensive and sometimes leads to different decisions in different countries.'
