§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will indicate the limitations placed on industrial property rights such as patents through implementation of Article 85 of the Rome Treaty.
§ Sir G. HoweIndustrial and commercial property rights are preserved by Article 36 of the Rome Treaty, but the rights are subject to Article 85 of the treaty. Decisions of the European Court of Justice indicate that owners of patents, trademarks or copyright will not be allowed to exercise their rights in a way which would erect barriers between national markets within the Community. In particular, they indicate that the owner of the right will normally not be able to exercise it to prevent import into an EEC country of products marketed by him or with his consent in another EEC country.
§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, after 1st January 1977, in how many languages a patent specification must be written, where searches will be made by United Kingdom companies; and whether there will be a master patent register in England covering European patents.
367W
§ Sir G. HoweIf by that date the proposed European Patent Office is in operation, an application for a European patent may be filed in any one of the three working languages, English, French or German. The office will produce translations of the claims of the application in the two working languages other than the one in which the application was made. The applicant will be required, at his own expense, to produce translations of the claims into Dutch, Danish and Italian. Aplications for United Kingdom national patents will continue to be required in English only.
Searches on European patent applications made by United Kingdom companies will be carried out by the International Patents Institute at The Hague, which will become the searching authority of the European Patent Office.
It is expected that the United Kingdom will keep a duplicate of the European Patent Register.
§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if, after 1st January 1977, a Community patent is operative throughout the EEC; and whether there will be any method at a reasonable expense which a United Kingdom company can adopt to avoid infringing a European patent.
§ Sir G. HoweIt seems likely that by 1st January 1977 it will be possible to apply for a European patent. Such a patent when granted will, for EEC countries, constitute a Community patent which will be of a unitary nature operative through out the whole of the EEC. United Kingdom companies, to avoid infringing a European patent, will need to have regard to existing European patents, just as now they must have regard to existing British patents.
§ Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many patents have been registered in the last year for which figures are available in each of the EEC countries.
§ Sir G. HoweThe numbers of patents granted in each of the countries which are now members of the EEC during 1971, the latest year for which the figures are available, are as follows:368W
Belgium 16,349 Denmark 2,464 France 51,456 Federal Republic of Germany 18,149 Republic of Ireland 804 Italy 17,500 Luxembourg 1,991 The Netherlands 2,714 United Kingdom 38,989