As more and more Chinese enterprises "go out" to participate in international competition and cooperation, cross-border protection of intellectual property rights has become a compulsory course for innovative enterprises to explore the international market. In order to help enterprises and the general public with overseas intellectual property related needs, Longyuan Intellectual Property Overseas Intellectual Property Service Platform will continuously push overseas national intellectual property disputes emergency services and risk prevention and control service guidelines.

　　This issue mainly pushes the first article - European Intellectual Property Dispute Emergency Service and Risk Prevention and Control Service Guide. The content is comprehensive and practical. Don't forget to collect and follow↓

　　1. European Intellectual Property Laws and Regulations and Relevant Institutions

　　European Patent Office

　　The European Patent Organization was established in the 1970s, and its subordinate European Patent Office (EPO) is a patent examining body established under the European Patent Treaty.

　　The applicant submits a patent application to the European Patent Office, and the participating countries recognize the patent examination process of the European Patent Office. However, after the EPO has passed the examination, if you want to enter a certain country, you need to submit a translation in its official language to the country and publish it by the country's patent management agency in order to obtain the country's patent protection, and the subsequent maintenance fee to be paid to the country. If you want to protect in multiple countries, you need to enter multiple countries and pay a lot of fees.

　　In the past 10 years, Europe has been promoting the single patent system, that is, an application can have patent rights in the entire EU after authorization, and the rights do not need to enter a specific country. If this scheme is implemented, it will greatly expand the scope of patent protection and reduce the patent application and maintenance fees.

　　European Union Intellectual Property Office

　　For trademarks and designs, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) is the competent authority responsible for the application and protection of trademarks and designs.

　　Judicial

　　In terms of judiciary, patent cases in Europe are still being litigated in each member state.

　　At the end of 2012, the EU passed the consent letter on the European Unified Patent Court, but it has not yet started operation. Courts of first instance include central courts, local courts and district courts. The Central Court is headquartered in Paris and will have two chambers in London and Munich. Local and regional courts are located in EU member states. The Court of Appeal is located in Luxembourg.

　　The Unified Patent Court is only responsible for patent cases involving European patents and European unified patents, such as infringement and invalidation lawsuits, and the European Unified Patent Court is only open to EU member states.

　　The EU's main intellectual property laws

　　At present, the main intellectual property laws of the European Union include: European Patent Convention, European Community Trademark Regulations, Copyright and Neighboring Rights Directive of the Information Society, etc.

　　Within the EU, due to its greater mobility and higher trade freedom, it often involves simultaneous infringements in many European countries. If a domestic lawsuit is filed in every country where the infringement occurs, it will consume a lot of manpower and material resources, and will lead to inconsistent judgments in the same case. Cross-border litigation issues are mainly resolved in the EU under the Brussels Regulation.

　　Pursuant to the Brussels Regulation, a European patent infringement lawsuit may be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction. Judgments made by this court, as well as the recognition and enforcement of judgments, do not require retrial by courts in other countries.

　　According to the provisions of the Brussels Regulations, the court with jurisdiction may be the court of the country where the defendant resides or the court of the place where the tort is committed.

　　If the infringement occurs in multiple countries at the same time, the courts of multiple countries have jurisdiction. If an action is brought in two or more courts at the same time, once the first court has made a jurisdiction decision, that it has jurisdiction, the other courts will refuse jurisdiction and these courts cannot deny the jurisdiction of the first court.

　　2. How to deal with intellectual property risks

　　intellectual property infringement

　　In Europe, if you are accused of intellectual property infringement, you must first check which specific country it is in, and study the response to the domestic law of that country.

　　There are exceptions to the domestic effect of adjudication in patent disputes. For example, British courts have issued adjudications with international effect on standard-essential patents, and Dutch courts have often issued so-called "cross-border injunctions", which can prohibit the accused infringer from A country commits patent infringement.

　　In the opposition procedure, any third party can file an opposition to the validity of the patent to the European Patent Office within a certain period of time. Once the opposition is established, the patent will be revoked or deemed invalid throughout Europe. However, once the patent enters each country and becomes a package of national patents, if you want to file an invalidation request, you need to do it country by country, which is very time-consuming, labor-intensive and expensive.

　　trademark infringement

　　For trademarks, when being sued for infringing on others' legally registered trademarks in EU countries, while actively responding to the lawsuit, you can consider applying for revocation on the grounds of "common name of the product" and "not actually used within 5 years". the trademark.