Filing Patents & Trademarks in European Union

European Union patent law is a subset of European patent law. It also serves as the superset of the patent laws of the individual states of the European Union (EU). The most recent (proposed) addition to the range of measures currently in place is the Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The most recent directive relating specifically to patents is Directive on the patentability of biotechnological inventions. Patents are probably the least harmonised area of intellectual property laws of the European Union.

"The most noticeable characteristic of the present state of the patent law in the EU is its dualism, i.e. the coexistence of two different ways for obtaining patents with the same effects, namely limited to the territory of the Member State for which they are granted. (...) a Community patent, i.e. a patent which would cover the entire territory of the EU, have the same effects throughout the EU, which could be revoked centrally, etc., is not available because a great number of EU Member States have not ratified the 1989 Agreement Relating to Community Patents."[1]

"The continuing decentralized administration of European patents in as many as 17 States, in spite of the Single Market and the Maastricht Treaties, is an anachronism for which applicants have to pay dearly. Enforcement is another area where European patent holders must still live with disadvantages unknown to their US and Japanese competitors in their own countries.” [2]

European trade mark law is governed by national law in the countries which make up Europe, together with European Law within those European countries which are also EU member states. Trade marks may be registered within individual countries, or across the whole of the EU (by means of a Community Trade Mark).

Within EU member states, national law implements European Directives so that the law in each jurisdiction is more or less equivalent, the eventual goal being harmonisation of trade mark law within the EU.

Certain aspects of law do vary on a country by country basis within the EU, such as the protection for unregistered trade marks within the United Kingdom under the common law tort of 'passing off' and the inclusion of provisions relating to Honest Concurrent Use into UK national trade mark law (which have their basis in the 1938 UK legislation rather than the Directive which led to the drafting of the UK Trade Marks Act 1994).

Notable countries within Europe but outside the EU include Norway and Switzerland.

There is also a system known as the Madrid System which applies within European countries and provides a means of streamlining applications on a national level via a single international registration which may have effect in several countries, as designated by the applicant.