Proposal for a revision of the European Patent Convention

In 2000, the European Patent Convention was amended with the aim of modernisation and for promoting alignment with the TRIPs Agreement and the Patent Law Treaty. As not all issues could be considered in the revision, the idea of a ’first’ and a ‘second basket’ was born. Several substantive topics were postponed to the ‘second basket’ to be dealt with in a later revision conference, which never took place. In this article, proposals are discussed to revise the European Patent Convention.

Apart from looking at the substantive requirements for patentability and at the introduction of a grace period for inventors, proposals for amendment of several Articles are formulated. Finally, a proposal to safeguard the judicial independence of the boards of appeal in the European Patent Convention is also discussed.