Patent Reforms at Both Sides of the Atlantic: A Critical Analysis from a “Good Governance” Perspective

At present, I am carrying out a study of the European patent system from an administrative law/governance and comparative law perspective. Even though in the US, several patent scholars have been doing research on applying administrative law principles to the US patent system (notably Arti K. Rai, John F. Duffy, Craig Allen Nard and Kali N. Murray), in Europe the lack of attention to administrative law principles has remained a striking feature of the patent system. In contrast to commentators and practitioners in other technically complex areas, such as environmental law, the European patent law community has tended to pay little attention to administrative law doctrine and principles. One could claim that the European patent system largely is an uncultivated area in terms of governance. Moreover, the available literature on patent governance consists primarily of contributions by social and political scientists (e.g. Susanna Borrás, 2006; Ingrid Schneider, 2009) and focuses mainly on the European patent system.