Many things can motivate a blogger to set aside what they are doing and begin to pen a blogpost. It may be excitement about a judgment that has just come out, enthusiasm about a new legal development, or interest piqued by a news item. Sometimes, it is grumpiness. This is one such time.
The IPKat is a keen user of various social media, and anyone using applications such as Twitter to follow developments in the world of intellectual property cannot fail to have been bombarded, as has the IPKat, by items about the
European Inventor Award 2015. There is an extensive
section on the website of the European Patent Office about this event, going back to 2006. Merpel notes that this is in stark contrast to the
tiny section, as she
posted earlier this week, about the Unitary Patent.
The IPKat wants to know what on earth the EPO is doing lavishing such resources on such an event.
Article 4(3) of the European Patent Convention states that:
The task of the Organisation shall be to grant European patents. This shall be carried out by the European Patent Office supervised by the Administrative Council.
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| Ultra vires = no no |
Whatever the European Inventor Award is, it is certainly not "to grant European patents". So this Kat's first gripe is that the event seems completely
ultra vires in respect of what the EPO is actually supposed to be doing. National patent offices may have a wider mandate to foster innovation, to promote intellectual property generally, and to raise the profile of patenting, but the EPO most emphatically does not. At best, it is a distraction, and an apparently costly one at that, from the EPO's legally defined role.
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| "Maybe this year I'll manage it ..." |
But this Kat thinks that it is worse than that. The European Inventor Award is about ranking inventions. Publicly proclaiming that one invention (the winner) has more merit than others (the runners up and those that were not even nominated). This is actually contrary to the EPO's role as a body that grants patents, in which role (its only legally ceded role) it is bound to judge any invention against the objective standards of novelty and inventive step,
irrespective of merit with respect to any other invention. Others are free to opine that one invention is "better" or has more worth than another, but the EPO should be quite disinterested in this. Its involvement with such an event tarnishes its objectivity.
The European Patent Office does many laudable things that do relate to its task assigned by Treaty of granting European patents. The development of electronic registers, online access to prosecution files, development of patent databases and search tools, and pioneering work on online filing systems. And of course training in respect of all of these. These activities are to be lauded and welcomed.
The European Inventor Award is at best an expensive distraction, and at worse a dangerous compromise of principle.
As ever, the IPKat welcomes comments from our readers, and to this end a poll has been arranged on the sidebar to coincide with this post, where readers can express their own view of the European Inventor Award. The IPKat looks forward to hearing your views.
