International patent protection: Time for a fully EU functioning supra-national patent mechanism

Loftus, D

Abstract

Larger industrial companies have become increasingly global in their functions
and aspirations. With regard to patents, it is increasingly common for a multinational company to
face alleged infringing acts committed by the same competitor in several countries. Securing
international patent protection both at the acquisition and the enforcement stage is the corollary
to the cross border exploitation of patents. The regulation of transnational trade and the
international exploitation of patent rights have brought about international agreements concerning
these closely related issues, such as international patent granting power, international
harmonization of patent laws and uniform systems of jurisdiction and choice of law rules
applicable to patent enforcement as well as other areas. However, there is an increasingly strained
relationship between international patent acquisition and enforcement1 which is the dominant
focus of this paper. Whilst a network of international agreements facilitates the grant of
increasingly similar patent rights in many countries, cross border patent enforcement through the
application of the relevant private international rules has been very weak. From a private
international law perspective, the legal independence and territorial limitations of patent rights
has severe implications for the application of the relevant jurisdictional and choice of law rules.
Therefore, cross-border adjudication has indeed been challenged in the patent area. This paper
seeks to focus on the problems associated with acquiring and enforcing patent rights at a multijurisdictional
level, particularly within the EU.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: Dec 6, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Journal: Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology
• Electronic ISSN: 1901-8401
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 3
• Publisher URL: http://www.jiclt.com/index.php/jiclt/article/view/137