Wither national patent offices? The future of national patent offices in Europe

Author: Bruce Alexander, Partner, Boult Wade Tennant

For many decades following the creation of European National Patent Offices, many in the latter part of the last century, those offices had the exclusive right to grant statutory monopoly rights in Patents for Inventions, Registered Designs and Trade Marks. Over the last two or three decades, that monopoly has been eroded. Increasing harmonisation and regionalisation of intellectual property (IP) laws has produced a variety of routes which applicants may follow to obtain their registered statutory monopoly in specific European countries. The opening of the Office for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market (OHIM) to grant Community Trade Mark Registrations provided the first pan-European Union IP Right. A Community Design Law is under discussion and the Community Patent Convention is being re-examined. Will this lead to a set of pan-European IP Rights to the exclusion of National Patent Offices?

What is the Role of the National Patent Office?
In his Chief Executive's summary of the British Patent Office Annual Report and Accounts for 1995/96, Paul Hartnack's opening paragraph set this out.

The role of the Patent Office is to help stimulate innovation and international competitiveness of British industry through intellectual property rights. Our work is closely linked to the wider objectives of Government in these two areas - set out in the Competitiveness White Paper. We aim to fulfil our role by establishing industrial property rights with a high presumption of validity and by promoting a system of national and international procedures which is user-friendly and capable of meeting changing customer needs.

Traditionally this role was realised on a purely national basis, the Patent Office aiming to help stimulate innovation of British Industry through Intellectual Property Rights by establishing Industrial Property Rights with a high presumption of validity. By the 1880s, there were laws in place providing for registrations of patents for inventions, industrial designs and trademarks, each of those laws providing a statutory monopoly in the relevant right for a period of years or, for trademarks, potentially indefinitely. The monopoly conferred was limited to the territory of the United Kingdom and there was no body other than the Patent Office which could grant an equivalent right. In the case of the British Patent Office, there was always an accent on a high presumption of validity and the role of the Patent Office extended to resolving disputes between parties over ownership or validity of the rights granted and other related issues. The same was true in other European countries, in each case, a National Patent Office was set up to grant registered protection for inventions, designs and trademarks and had the sole power to grant the relevant statutory monopoly in the country concerned.