Excellence Everywhere - National University of Ireland, Galway

n The Paris Convention. Signed in 1883, everymember country must grant to nationals of othercountries the same IP protection it grants to its owncitizens. More practically, it allows inventors in onenation to use the patent filing date in that nation asthe effective date in another nation, provided thatthey apply within 12 months of the first filing.n Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Filing a patentin all countries would be extremely costly. ThePCT coordinates the filing of international patentapplications among nearly 140 countries. A PCTfiling contains the nuts and bolts for an examination,such as a search of prior art and a descriptionof claims. A preliminary examination rules on itspatentability. Finally, each contracting national orregional patent office (see the European PatentOffice (EPO), below) is free to carry out a formalexamination and decide whether to issue a patent.Aside from the unified procedure, the advantagesto filing a PCT are streamlining and buying timebefore the national examinations commence. Butlocal jurisdictions charge fees for filing, issuing andmaintaining the patent.The Big ThreeAmong the world’s patent offices, the biggest arethe European Patent Office (EPO), the United StatesPatent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the JapanPatent Office (JPO). Together, the USPTO and theEPO review the largest number of the world’spatent applications, but Japan’s patent officeactivities are growing fast.China is also fast becoming a world leader inintellectual property, and Western countries arescrambling to establish trade agreements toharmonize patent information (see “The World’sMost Active Patent Offices”). The differencesamong the big three are first-to-invent and first-tofile,and that the U.S. permits patents on softwareand business methods. While the EPO grants onlyone patent for any given inventive system, thesame invention in Japan could constitute up to 10different patents, with every aspect of the inventionfiled separately.Like WIPO, the EPO does not issue patents, butcarries out formal examinations on behalf of 37European countries, along with examining oppositionsto patents already granted.The World’s Most Active Patent OfficesCountry/Region # of Examiners # of ApplicationsUnited States(USPTO)Europe (EPO)Japan (JPO)China (SIPO)South Korea(KIPO)India3,4003,5001,3582,000728135400,000208,000400,000175,000160,00014,500Data assembled from national sources between 2004 and 2006.Building a more unified systemAt the end of the General Agreement on Tariffsand Trade (GATT) treaty, which created the WorldTrade Organization (WTO), the discussion turns tothe wide variation of protection and enforcementof intellectual property rights. As IP rights becamemore important in global trade, these differencesbecame a source of tension in internationalrelations. New trade rules were seen as a way tointroduce more order and predictability, and fordisputes to be settled more systematically. At theturn of the century, “harmonization” became thecatchword. In mid-2000, the big three signed thePatent Law Treaty, which charts a path towardsinternational normalization by 2010.The WTO oversees the Agreement on Trade-RelatedAspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), a1995 agreement that attempts to “narrow the gapsin the way that these [intellectual property] rightsare treated around the world, and to bring themunder common international rules.” The TRIPSAgreement is expected to do a number of things,including increasing royalty and license fees todeveloping nations and increasing foreign directinvestment in the developing world.Ratification of the TRIPS Agreement became amandatory requirement for membership in the WTO.The agreement attempts to gather and normalizeall aspects of IP rights and their enforcement,including protecting trade secrets, establishingtransparency, and clarifying copyrights. Theagreement attempts to crack down on reverseengineering of biotechnology products, and requirescompanies in developing countries to adhere toGood Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards.intellectual property161