Chinese firms to benefit greatly from EU's new patent system

The first unitary patent in Europe, slated to be issued next year by the European Patent Office, will help Chinese companies save time and money, said EPO President Benoit Battistelli.

Rather than dealing with formalities in different countries, a unitary patent applicant can gain approval for participating countries in the European Union.

It will be "less costly and more simple" to file a patent, Battistelli said during an intellectual property symposium in Beijing on Thursday.

"We leave the choice with each patent holder" to decide whether to apply for a traditional or unitary one, he said. "We'll see in a few years which one is more often chosen.

He explained that all the preparatory work for issuing a unitary patent is completed at the EPO, but is also closely linked to the creation of a unified patent court, which requires at least 13 EU member states to ratify. To date, eight countries, including France, Denmark and Belgium, have ratified the court and three or four others are close to finalizing ratification, Battistelli said.

Facing mounting stockpiles of applications and growing complexity in technologies that are more and more difficult to evaluate, patent offices need to deliver high-quality - or "legally solid" - patents quickly to meet the demand, the veteran patent expert said.

Challenges to tackle include training for examiners to update their expertise and developing efficient tools such as search engines as part of the EPO's cooperation with the State Intellectual Property Office of China.

Annual filings from China increased 10-fold at the EPO over the past decade. In 2014 alone, filings from China in Europe surpassed 26,400, accounting for 9 percent of the applications filed with the EPO and placing China fourth among sources of patent filings with the office.

Calling the China-Europe collaboration in the IP field a "positive, win-win" partnership, Battistelli said the two offices not only have improved their own patent services, but are also contributing to the global patent system within the framework of IP5, made up of the world's largest IP offices from China, Europe, the United States, South Korea and Japan.

These five offices represent approximately 85 percent of patent applications worldwide.

"If we together harmonize our rules, procedures and practice, it will be a great contribution to a better global patent system."

wangxin@chinadaily.com.cn