Progress of the legal framework on a future European Patent

The Justice Ministers of European Union Member States have reached a series of agreements on European legislation about judicial competencies. These agreements relate to the recognition of foreign judicial decisions in patent matters. They would also serve as a precursor to the creation of a specialized jurisdiction for patents that would accelerate the procedure and lower costs deriving from European patent conflicts between  Union Member States.

These agreements, now elevated to the rank of proposal, still await the vote of the Commission and the Parliament. They would be subject to a vote in the plenary session, which would result in their approval into law.

Such progress is particularly important given the differences between national patent legislations in the European Union, in that this advance would grant protection in all European Union Member States.

The current framework makes patent protection difficult in a market that follows an integration policy without encouraging innovation by imposing compliance standards on each piece of legislation of the European Union market and assuming all of the arising potential parallel litigation including the expenses, complexity, and insecurity the litigation could create.

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Please note that this article is not intended to provide legal advice.

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