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Creating A Global Patent System
prostoalex writes "May issue of MIT Technology Review discussed the implications of a globalized patent system. For small inventors, it argues, the cost of globalizing the rights for their invention are just unbearable. For example, in Europe it costs about $7,000 per country to file a patent application. As an article bonus, some people might like to take a look at the list of the largest patent holders per industry in PDF format."
With the States current attitude towards international law & agreements, I can't see any form of global patent law being created, except if the U.S. forces the rest of the world to agree with it in some economic or political way.
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No thanks!
Some countries still have a respectible Patent System in place. Why would they want to be polluted with some (many) of the ridiculous Patents granted in the USA.
There is a Swiss based organisation called World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with 179 member states promoting worldwide patents.
From the Website:
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an international organization dedicated to helping to ensure that the rights of creators and owners of intellectual property are protected worldwide and that inventors and authors are, thus, recognized and rewarded for their ingenuity.
The problem is real but there are severe diffulties on the road to global patents.
1. Many developing countries have no interest in commiting to such international agreements. They see the cheap labour their only weapon to get to the international market. And they cannot afford much research.
2. The consept of patent varies a lot. As a well known example many ideas patented in US could never get a patent in Europe.
3. Many countries are trying to protect their own industry and reluctant to accept unbiased treatment of foreign and own patents. That the real world situation. And I'm now talking about the "civililized"/rich countries with many international contracts.
The cost of filing in several different countries is largely irrelevent to a small inventor. The income from one country alone could often result in a significant return on investment. There are other issues though:
1. The cost of filing in one country. Most inventions are failures. $7000 just for one country is a lot of money to invest in a product that the world just isn't ready for. With careful budgetting, this could support the inventor for another few months, allowing for him to perfect his invention
2. Timeframes. 20 years is far too long. Nothing that's 20 years old could ever be considered at all modern. Most cars last about 10 years. Computers are out of date in about 3. Even industrial equipment is usually outdated much more quickly than that. If something has not returned the investment cost within 5 years, just about any organisation would consider it a failure.
3. Lack of protection for independent inventors. It's actually very likely that several people will come up with the same idea at the same time. - for example, Bell beat Edison and others to the invention of the telephone by a short time - Shouldn't others be entitled to actually finish their invention without being charged with breaching a patent that hadn't been granted when they started?
His lawyers advised him badly. I work as a patent attorney for a major automotive systems company and their plan is to patent only in US, UK, France, Germany and Japan.
Their competitors can knock off as many copies as they like in third world countries like Ghana, Cambodia or Belgium, but if they can't import them into the major markets then it is pointless.
Always focus your patents on the countries you will sell in, and use them to block imports from elsewhere.
OK here are some real numbers for a US-originating European patent application with 20 pages of text and 20 claims (somewhat on the low side when compared with US practice but multiple dependencies are positively encouraged in Europe not penalised as in the USPTO)
Filing: $2200
Examination: $1800
Designation fees* (all states): $800
Dealing with objections by Examiner: $4000
Maintenance fees (say): $2000
Grant and validation:
- United Kingdom: $300
- Austria: $1700
- Belgium: $900
- Cyprus: $1700
- Denmark: $3600
- Finland: $3300
- France: $2300
- Germany: $2500
- Greece: $2250
- Ireland: $700
- Italy: $2100
- Latvia: $1600
- Lithuania: $2100
- Luxembourg: $700
- Monaco: $750
- Netherlands: $2300
- Portugal: $2700
- Romania: $1500
- Slovenia: $2000
- Spain: $2000
- Sweden: $3800
- Switzerland: $1000
- Turkey: $1900
Sub-Total: $43,700Official Grant + Printing Fees: $1500
Grand Total: $56,000 (plus US patent attorney's time and mark up.
Most of the validation costs are for translations and some countries appear low because they share a language with another country, e.g. French is used in France, Switzerland and Belgium
If you are not a pharmaceutical company, you would probably be looking for patents in the UK, France, Germany and perhaps Scandinavian countries, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Assuming the UK, France and Germany would give a cost per country of about $5200 per country.
* seven buys all states