US patent ruling "potential setback for UK pharma"

British and European pharmaceutical companies could now find it more complicated and expensive to get patent protection in the USA, say  patent attorneys. The threatened changes to the system stem from a US  Federal Appeals Court decision late March, upholding controversial new  US Patent Office rules and rejecting a challenge from GlaxoSmithKline  with regard to the number of claims an inventor can make in support of  its intellectual property.

According to the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the US ruling  has no direct effect on the patent systems in either the UK or in  Europe. However, according to attorney, Gordon Wright, who specializes  in pharmaceutical patents, "these US rules will further increase the  cost and complexity for all users of the US patent system, including, of  course, European pharmaceutical companies wishing to get patent  protection in the USA. However, the US ruling has no direct effect on  the patent systems in either the UK or more widely in Europe. Nor, in my  view, will it have any significant effect on the evolution of patent  law and procedures in Europe."

In Europe, the use of the patent system by the pharmaceutical industry  is already the subject of an enquiry by the European Commission  Competition Authorities, which are due to publish their final report  this summer. The CIPA is opposed to any steps that would merely make the  current European system more expensive and complicated, and therefore  less accessible to users, especially small- and medium-sized  enterprises, that are already struggling in the current economic  downturn.