Confederation on the Unified Patent Court fees

The proposed level of fees is too high for the Czech companies, the Confederation states.

The European patent system is financially unbearable for many Czech subjects today as they have not enough money for the patent protection and maintenance fees. If the patent rights protection and enforcement system in Europe will be charged by fees in accordance with the proposed tariffs, the whole patent process will become meaningless for our companies.

The consequence of introducing higher fees won't be a more available protection of our inventors' rights, but a larger space for the multinational corporations' activities as these are economically more powerful.

The proposed patent tariffs make the rights protection for the subjects from economically less developed countries almost impossible. It will considerably impede their access to the judicial system in relation to the patent protection. It will complicate the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan's implementation whose main aim is to promote the development of the small and middle-sized entreprises in the EU.

The Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic thus demands:

• to choose option 2 in part A of the Rule 370 of the Rules of Procedure which introduces a fee discount for small and medium-sized companies.

• to reduce the court fees, especially the fee for patent abolition's proposal, which is set at 20 000 euros. If a subject wants to abolish an EU patent on the territory of the Czech Republic now, the fee is approximately 200 times lower.

• to reduce the maximum limit proposed for the counterparty's reimbursement in case the suit on patent violation is lost. The Confederation considers the limit of 50 000 to 3 000 000 euros devastating.