European patent law covers a wide range of legislations including national patent laws, the Strasbourg Convention of 1963, the European Patent Convention of 1973, and a number of European Union directives and regulations in countries which are party to the European Patent Convention.
Patents having effect in European states may be obtained either nationally, via national patent offices, or via a centralised patent prosecution process at the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO is not a body of the European Union and the states contracting to the European Patent Convention (the legal basis for the EPO) are different from those forming the European Union. A patent granted by the EPO does not lead to a single European Union-wide patent enforceable before one single court, but rather to independent national patents enforceable by national courts according to different national legislations and procedures.
European patent law is also shaped by international agreements such as the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs Agreement) and the Patent Law Treaty (PLT).
Read more about European Patent Law: Types of Patent Protection in Europe, Differences and Similarities Between National Laws, European Union Patent
Famous quotes containing the words european, patent and/or law:
“England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We accept and welcome ... as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.”
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)