Jacob: European patent will be passed by coalition
01 October 2010
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Simon Crompton
Lord Justice Jacob believes the current proposals for a European patent court will fail, but that reform will soon come through a “coalition of the willing”. In-house counsel can’t wait
The judge at the Court of Appeal in London told the audience at CIPA's annual congress that the EU patent and EU patent court were "balanced on a knife edge" after last month's leaked opinion from the Court of Justice's Advocates General. "But my money would be on it failing, again."
Jacob took the audience through a history of the idea of a Europe-wide patent, beginning in the Nazi government of the 1940s (when the languages would have been French, German and Italian) and running through formulations in the 60s, 70s and 80s, "none of which ever asked industry how the court should work".
It was only through a coalition of a few states, in the late 90s, that procedural agreement looked likely to be reached. "But EU people told us an agreement by a selected group of countries...
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