!051094 News from the European patenting scene Here's some information on European patent activities: BRITS UPSET WITH YANKS ANNUAL STATISTICS FOR GERMAN PATENTING US AND EUROPE BATTLE OVER COMMUNICATIONS PATENTS ============================================================================== It seems that the English are upset with US opposition to the GATT patent harmonization activities. An article in the April 16 issue of New Scientist, page 52, includes a quote from Patrick McLoughlin, a junior minister at the Department of Trade and Industry: "We prefer the first-to-file system, which operates in virtually every country of the world apart from the US. Although it is only in comparatively rare cases that the first-to-file and the first-to-invent systems would result in patents being granted to different people, the first-to-invent system imposes extra overheads on all researchers and inventors as they have to keep detailed countrersigned records of their work in case they have subsequently to prove when they thought of something. The main disadvantage for Britain's inventors is not so much that the US operates a first-to-invent system but that work done outside the US is not taken into account in determining who is the first to invent. This clear discrimination will be contrary to the recent GATT agreement on the 'trade related aspects of intellectual property' and I am hopeful that the US government will take steps to remove it." I suspect that the opinions of other countries will be even more harsh than those of the United Kingdom. ============================================================================== >From the May 6, 1994, issue of "The Week in Germany", page 5. Some 123,224 patent rights (Schutzrechte) were registered in Germany last year, eight percent more than 1992, the German Patent Office reported recently. The office also reported that 45,380 patents were registered last year, 1,717 more than in 1992. A total of 34,841 of the registrations came from German firms and individuals, up 870 over 1992. Inventors from the new states registered 2,110 patents in 1993, surpassing the previous high of 1,998 in 1990. The categories "measuring and testing" and vehicles remain the most popular, although there have been increases in the category medicine, veterinary medicine and hygiene. The Munich-based office took in DM 249.774 million (US $150 million) last year, somewhat below the 1992 level of DM 250.741 million, while expenditures came to DM 269.123 million. The deficit of almost DM 20 million, after a deficit of DM six million in 1992, led the cabinet to introduce a bill calling for a 20-percent increase in patent fees. The proposed legislation is meeting with strong resistance, however. Patent Office President Erich Hausser attributed the deficit increase to investments for an electronic information system, the delay in the renovation of the building and integrating 370 employees from the East Berlin patent office. Over the last 18 years, the figures show, the office recorded revenues totaling DM 3.7 billion (about US $2.2 billion) and spent DM 3.1 billion, including costs for the Federal Patent Court. ============================================================================== >From the May 1994 issue of Data Communications, page 18. A deadline of June 30 has been set for the latest efforts to settle a dispute over patents between US computer vendors and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The long-running row concerns an ETSI policy that requires its members to charge "reasonable" royalties when licensing patented technologies used as the basis of ETSI standards. The US Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association (CBEMA) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) oppose the regulation, saying US vendors can't be expected to sign away their patent rights in this way. They also claim the policy is way out of line with those used by all other major standards bodies. ETSI members had been given until March 25 to choose between putting up with the ruling or pulling out of the group, which ANSI says would shut them out of European markets. ETSI backed down at the last moment and set up a panel of mediators. The Commission of the European Communities has told ETSI that its policy goes against European competition law. And the US Justice Department has suggested privately that it could take action against ETSI under U.S. antitrust law, according to one source. Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service