Brussels, 20/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The select committee on the European Patent Office (EPO) reached agreement on how the revenue generated by the unitary patent is to be shared. There are 26 member states taking part in the unitary patent.
The committee adopted the distribution key for the 50% share of revenue from annual taxes that goes to participating countries. Revenue will be shared out according to a formula that takes account of GDP and the number of patents registered by each state, something that was not the case until now. An EPO source says that, at present, each state receives an equal share of the revenue, no matter how big it is. The remainder of the revenue is retained by the Patent Office.
Every year, companies have to pay taxes on their registered patents, the source says. With the passage of time, the tax increases to encourage movement into the public domain. “Why would any company pay exorbitant annual taxes for obsolete technology?” the source went on.
“The decision reached on the distribution key for the renewal fees is a significant step forward on the road to implementing the Unitary Patent scheme”, said EPO President Benoît Battistelli, speaking of the significant progress made in recent months.
On 24 June, the same committee came to a preliminary decision on the EPO's True Top 4 proposal on annual unitary patent taxes. Under this agreement, the level of tax is calculated as a function of the annual taxes paid by the four countries which have the greatest number of patent applications lodged and approved out of the 26 members (all of the EU except Spain and Croatia). The effect of this decision is to reduce costs by 78%, the EPO says.
Although the patent mechanism was put in place in 2012 with the adoption of the regulation on implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection (1257/2012) and the Council regulation on implementing enhanced cooperation with regard to translation arrangements (1260/2012), costs and the mechanism for sharing revenue had still to be agreed.
Balancing the cost of lodging a European patent, which has to be as attractive as possible for companies, in particular SMEs, with maintaining the high quality of administrative services, including of the EPO, has been a source of controversy until this year (see EUROPE 11344).
The first European unitary patent could be delivered by the EPO in 2016. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)