New European Patent System.

Since the European Patent Office (E. P. O. ) was set up in Munich on June 1, 1978, it has been possible to apply for European patents in either English, French or German. The European patent, granted on the basis of a unified examination procedure, is valid in all states designated in the application. At present, protection can cover ten European countries. Within the European Community as a whole, it is intended to reinforce the unification of the system, with effect from 1981, in particular by extending the protection afforded by a European patent to cover all member states of the community if any one of them is designated. As the E. P. O. is being set up in stages, applications in certain specific technological fields will not be examined until after 1st December 1979; this is the case for electronic systems and printed circuits. The cost of a European patent is about three times that of one national patent.