European Patent Office to slash fee to euro 5,000 by 2015

Says lack of complete database on Indian patents slowing down patent filing by local inventors

The European Patent Office (EPO), the second-largest European public service organisation with Euro 2-billion budget for 2013, is planning to cut the patent filing costs to Euro 5,000 (Rs 4.25 lakh), according to its director Dieter Tzschoppe.

“It (slash in patent fee) is currently in construction. This move is expected to increase the number of patent filings, especially from small and mid-sized companies and also from universities globally,” he said.

At present, filing a patent in 25 countries in the European Union (EU) for 20 years costs upwards of Euro 30,000 (around Rs 25.5 lakh). This includes filing, procedural, translation, examination, attorney, validation and renewal fees. The unitary patent cost for the same would be lower by 80 per cent from 2015, he added.

It may be recalled that the member states of the EU, had in 2012, agreed for the creation of a European patent with unitary effect (unitary patent) and a unified court. Under the new scheme, too, the Munich-headquartered EPO, will have a key role to play by granting and administering unitary patents.

EPO, a central patent-granting authority for Europe, had received 257,744 patent applications in 2012, of which 65,687 patents had already been granted. While the contracting states from Europe contributed 50 per cent to the total patent submissions last year, the US accounted for 25 per cent.

Speaking to Business Standard on the sidelines of a seminar on the European patent system organised by the CII in Hyderabad on Monday, Tzschoppe said the EPO had so far received 500 patents from India, with the biggest sectors being pharmaceuticals and fine chemistry, followed by computer inventions. “I think India has quite a good growth rate in terms of patent filings in Europe. This, however, is not as high as China. At present, China has a growth rate of 5 per cent and it intends to publish two million patents by 2050,” he added.

Tzschoppe said most of the companies were not making use of IPRs (intellectual property rights) because of the absence of complete database on Indian patents, which was slowing down patent filing by local inventors and creating road blocks to transfer of technology in the country.