European Community Patent Regulation Commission on Intellectual Property

However, ICC has concluded that the Community Patent system as currently envisaged does not unfortunately generally satisfy all the four main criteria for a Community Patent system to be acceptable to business. These criteria are:

1. fully satisfactory litigation arrangements;
2. low cost for obtaining and maintaining Community Patents;
3. a supervisory body independent of the European Patent Office to supervise the Community Patent system administered by the EPO;
4. continued co-existence with existing patent systems.

While the last two criteria may well be met by the system as finally agreed, the first (and important) criterion may not be satisfied and the second and equally important criterion is not met. ICC stresses that the envisaged system must be substantially improved if the system finally introduced is to be used by world business to a significant degree.