LES Nouvelles – March 2024
During the LES USA & Canada 2023 Annual Meeting in Chicago in October 2023, a panel of senior experts addressed how different policy orientations influence the patent and litigation ecosystem. The background for the panel was the risks inherent to innovation taken on by the inventor: The technology of the invention may fail. The technology may not be commercially successful. It may be overtaken by a better innovation. In the face of these uncertainties, the inventor should be entitled to enjoy a stable legal environment. There should be little risk that the legal rights associated with the inventor’s patent, its exploitation, and its enforcement are subject to frequent, abrupt change. The inventor should benefit from well-settled rules applied by neutral courts and by the patent office and other neutral expert government agencies. The panel reviewed the current situation across China, the European Union, and the United States. It seems that patent stability is being lost: patent rules and policy are influenced by election returns and turnover at regulatory agencies. And these are further impacted by political concerns about national security, industrial policy, and national sovereignty.