Five areas for global patent reform

Following the SCP’s meeting  from October 11 to 15, chairman Maximiliano Santa Cruz from Chile said that the Committee’s future work would focus on: exceptions and limitations to patent rights; quality of patents, including opposition systems; patents and health; client-patent adviser privilege; and transfer of technology.

"If things go well, there is real potential for deep dialogue on some of these issues, which could in turn lead to soft law," Philippe Baechtold, director in WIPO’s Patents and Innovation Division, told Managing IP.

He said there is particular potential for "a substantial work programme" on the first two points – exceptions and limitations, and patent quality.

On the former, SCP members agreed to send a questionnaire to member states asking what they want and what they consider important.

The questionnaires are likely to be completed before the SCP’s next meeting in May this year.

The work on exceptions and limitations was proposed by Brazil. During this month’s meeting, SCP members heard a presentation by Lionel Bently, an academic at Cambridge University, who has coordinated a study of the issue.

The work on quality was proposed by the so-called Group B member states, which are mainly developed countries.

The SCP first met in 1998 with the aim of harmonising patent laws. In 2000 member states agreed a Patent Law Treaty after discussions on substantive patent harmonisation failed to reach agreement.

During the following years there was deadlock as developing countries preferred to prioritise broad political issues, while developed member states wanted to focus on a limited number of specific issues.

In 2008, the Committee identified a non-exhaustive list of  issues, which initially contained 20 items. However, work on these has been general and not aimed at specific proposals.

This month, members agreed to add four issues to the list: impact of the patent system on developing countries and LDCs; patents and food security; strategic use of patents in business; and enhancing IT infrastructure for patent processing.

Baechtold said this month’s meeting – which included delegations from 86 countries, five international organisations and 25 NGOs – saw new mutual respect and trust between the delegates: "From a procedural point-of-view, everyone managed to have something in the package that they want."

Interviewed by Managing IP earlier this month, WIPO director-general Francis Gurry acknowledged that progress on substantive patent reform had been difficult in recent years, due to divisions between developed and developing countries.

But he stressed: "We have to get a patent agenda back. Otherwise we’re not credible."

Speaking at the AIPLA Annual Meeting in Washington DC on October 21, USPTO Director David Kappos reiterated the US’s stance that WIPO member states need to "get going on harmonisation".

"It is no longer acceptable for the patent system to be a hotch-potch," he added.