Internationalisation of Patent Systems and New Developments in Globalising World

Deepening contradictions on the global level between the industrially developed countries and developing countries emerged in 2001 when the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) announced the Patent Agenda on the initiative of the industrially developed countries. The main source of the contradictions was the draft Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) with the intention to establish higher protection standards than provided by the TRIPS Agreement. The developing countries wish to protect genetic resources and traditional knowledge in the framework of patent law. The goal of industrially developed countries is strengthening of legal protection of inventions and harmonisation of the laws. The USA, Japan and the European Patent Organisation, whose patent offices (so-called Trilateral Partners) have started creation of new patent systems (New Route, Patent Prosecution Highway, Triway), are actually most interested in it. The European Patent Organisation has designed a network of cooperation between the European patent offices (European Patent Network). Due to the contradictions with the developing countries work on substantive patent law harmonisation takes place outside WIPO in ëB+ Groupí of industrially developed countries.