New Grounds in the Patent Landscape for Nanotechnology Inventions from a European Perspective

In 2014, at latest in 2015, extensive changes in the legal environment for patents in Europe are to be expected, having considerable impact on monopolizing inventions e.g. from the nanotechnology environment: With establishing the "European patent with unitary effect”, for the very first time the grant of single patents with uniform coverage of (almost) the entire territory of the European Union will be available. Even more groundbreaking, the introduction of the new “Unified Patent Court” will establish a new legal basis for patent enforcement as well as invalidation. With this talk, a comprehensive guide through the patent jungle of classifications, regulations and case law within Europe for nanotechnology inventors/applicants is given. At first, an overview of classifying nanotechnology inventions and trends in patent filings is presented. Thereafter follows a description of the current patent system and of some peculiarities of the forthcoming changes in Europe with their impact on nanotechnology patenting. The conclusion of the excursion into the world of patents is that scientists in the field of nanotechnology break new ground not only with respect to technology as such but also participate in building up a rapidly growing patent landscape. This creates ample opportunities, with a new challenge in form of the unified patent system just waiting around the corner.