Unfortunately, during patent prosecution, it may occur that a deadline to perform an action required by the patent office is missed. However, do not despair! Legal remedies are sometimes available to address this. In fact, the European Patent Convention provides no fewer than three possible remedies in case a deadline is missed. Which remedy is available depends on the specific action that was missed.
Patents are, by their very nature, anti-competitive. More specifically, a patent owner has the right to stop others from commercializing his invention and thus has the right, albeit temporarily, to prevent competition. However, while the legislator has accepted the anti-competitive nature of patents as a means to promote innovation, this should not be taken to mean that all patent matters are immediately outside the scope of competition law. In the following, we review the judgement of January 30th, 2020 in case C-307/18 which deals with patent settlements and why these may infringe Article 101 TFEU.
Inventors are often reluctant to disclose all technical details of their invention in their patent application. They fear that disclosing these details in a patent application makes it too easy for copycats.
Although this reasoning is certainly understandable, it goes against the idea of patent protection. Disclosing your invention helps society as a whole to broaden the state of the art and to stimulate innovation. In exchange for disclosing your invention, a granted patent gives you the right to exclude competitors from manufacturing, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or exporting your patented invention for a limited term.
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