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European Patent Office
REGULATIONS
AND COMMUNICATIONS
Belgium Photocopies of documents made available to the public in the reading room of the Belgian Patent Office. Since 27 May 1980 the following charges are applied: 5 FB per page if a visitor does the copying himself IO FB per page if the copies are made by the staff of the Office Complete copies of Belgian patent documents on aperture cards with film negatives: 10 FB per card.
European
Patent
Off ice
Grant of the first European Patents The first European patents, 13 in all, were granted on 9 January 1980. Just over half the patents were in respect of inventions in the mechanical field, the remainder were in the chemical field. The applications for these first European patents were amongst those filed in the first four months following the opening of the Office on 1 June 1978. Furthermore, they were amongst the first European applications to be exammed when substantive examination began in June 1979. The composition of this first batch of European applications is of course fortuitous and it would be clearly premature to draw any conclusions from it. The grant of these first European patents marks the bringing into full operation of the second major stage of the European patent granting process, namely the substantive examination. The third and final stage, the opposition procedure, is now open.
The Netherlands The function of industrial property in relation to the availability and transfert of knowledge Mid 1976 The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government policy published the report “Impact of foreign influences on the Netherlands: Availability of Scientific and Technological knowhow “. Among other things this report deals with the role of patent information as a source of technological information. The Minister of Economic Affairs requested the President of the Patent Office to comment on the 136
report of the Scientific Council, whereupon the President invited representatives of the: - Ministry of Economic Affairs - National Council for Information Policy (NOBIN) - Association of Patent Attorneys - Governmental Industrial Advisory Service (RND) - Industrial Property Study Committee - Netherlands Association for Patent Information (WON) to participate in an advisory committee wherein also representatives of the Patent Office and a member of the Scientific Council would participate. The committee which was chaired by the President of the Patent Office restricted its study to the role of patent information. It submitted in May 1978 its report entitled: “The function of industrial property in relation to the availability and transfer of knowledge as far as patent documents are concerned”. Where it is stated that: Knowledge contained in patent documents is strongly oriented to practical application and it may be used to stimulate the desired technological innovation. Three ways of using patent information are mentioned: the application Tn ones own company of knowledge contained in a patent of a third party, i.e. under a license agrement. the use of technological knowledge described in patent documents in the framework of research and development. recognizing trends in the development of technology based on changes in the patent activity in particular technological fields. Apart from this a patent is of course a legal document which primarily serves to d. obtain an exclusive right which can be exploited. Until now the latter aspect has obtained considerably more attention than the information aspect. The optimal use of knowledge contained in the patent literature is made difficult by obstacles such as: - the fact that it is rather difficult to judge the value of the knowledge published in a patent - patent documents are difficult to read because of the legalistic phraseology - the classification system used by the Patent Office is not a suitable tool for getting access to the technical information contained in patent documents. To overcome these obstacles the assistance of specialists will often be indispensable. It is proposed to subsidize this assistance where needed and to take measures to remove the obstacles at least in those fields of technology which are of particular national importance. It is stated that the fact that one owns one or more
World Patent Information
2 (1980) No. 3
Regulations
and Communications
AND COMMUNICATIONS
Belgium Photocopies of documents made available to the public in the reading room of the Belgian Patent Office. Since 27 May 1980 the following charges are applied: 5 FB per page if a visitor does the copying himself IO FB per page if the copies are made by the staff of the Office Complete copies of Belgian patent documents on aperture cards with film negatives: 10 FB per card.
European
Patent
Off ice
Grant of the first European Patents The first European patents, 13 in all, were granted on 9 January 1980. Just over half the patents were in respect of inventions in the mechanical field, the remainder were in the chemical field. The applications for these first European patents were amongst those filed in the first four months following the opening of the Office on 1 June 1978. Furthermore, they were amongst the first European applications to be exammed when substantive examination began in June 1979. The composition of this first batch of European applications is of course fortuitous and it would be clearly premature to draw any conclusions from it. The grant of these first European patents marks the bringing into full operation of the second major stage of the European patent granting process, namely the substantive examination. The third and final stage, the opposition procedure, is now open.
The Netherlands The function of industrial property in relation to the availability and transfert of knowledge Mid 1976 The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government policy published the report “Impact of foreign influences on the Netherlands: Availability of Scientific and Technological knowhow “. Among other things this report deals with the role of patent information as a source of technological information. The Minister of Economic Affairs requested the President of the Patent Office to comment on the 136
report of the Scientific Council, whereupon the President invited representatives of the: - Ministry of Economic Affairs - National Council for Information Policy (NOBIN) - Association of Patent Attorneys - Governmental Industrial Advisory Service (RND) - Industrial Property Study Committee - Netherlands Association for Patent Information (WON) to participate in an advisory committee wherein also representatives of the Patent Office and a member of the Scientific Council would participate. The committee which was chaired by the President of the Patent Office restricted its study to the role of patent information. It submitted in May 1978 its report entitled: “The function of industrial property in relation to the availability and transfer of knowledge as far as patent documents are concerned”. Where it is stated that: Knowledge contained in patent documents is strongly oriented to practical application and it may be used to stimulate the desired technological innovation. Three ways of using patent information are mentioned: the application Tn ones own company of knowledge contained in a patent of a third party, i.e. under a license agrement. the use of technological knowledge described in patent documents in the framework of research and development. recognizing trends in the development of technology based on changes in the patent activity in particular technological fields. Apart from this a patent is of course a legal document which primarily serves to d. obtain an exclusive right which can be exploited. Until now the latter aspect has obtained considerably more attention than the information aspect. The optimal use of knowledge contained in the patent literature is made difficult by obstacles such as: - the fact that it is rather difficult to judge the value of the knowledge published in a patent - patent documents are difficult to read because of the legalistic phraseology - the classification system used by the Patent Office is not a suitable tool for getting access to the technical information contained in patent documents. To overcome these obstacles the assistance of specialists will often be indispensable. It is proposed to subsidize this assistance where needed and to take measures to remove the obstacles at least in those fields of technology which are of particular national importance. It is stated that the fact that one owns one or more
World Patent Information
2 (1980) No. 3
Regulations
and Communications