Patenting and Patent enforcement in Europe - a unified approach?

In our weekly expert view piece, Pam Taak, senior associate in the Life Sciences & Healthcare practice of Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, examines the implications of changes to the patent protection and enforcement landscape in Europe.

As of next year, companies worldwide will be able to obtain a single Unitary Patent (UP) covering most of the European Union (EU), and there will also be a single Unified Patent Court (UPC), as part of which UPC Judges will be able to hear and determine patent disputes effectively on a pan-EU basis. The introduction of UPs and the new UPC system represents the single biggest change to the patent protection and patent enforcement landscape in Europe over the last four decades.

Greater legal and regulatory harmonization within the EU is key. Well, at least that’s what the main law-making EU institutions think (namely, the European Parliament, Council and the Commission). Companies operating in the life sciences and pharmaceuticals sector will have seen various attempts by different European judicial and regulatory bodies over the years to achieve greater harmonization within the EU – including, for example, in the areas of marketing authorizations, patent term extensions, health assessments, pricing and reimbursement processes, and transparency requirements. And now it seems the complex world of patents is about to follow the “harmonization” trend!