Traduction de «Examen de la nouveauté et de la brevetabilité » (Français → Anglais) :

Among other things, this has meant that in practice in the US, restrictions on patenting of business methods (apart from the requirements of novelty and inventive step) are negligible.

This is why the Group has emphasised that the examination of patentability criteria must take account of ethical principles as well as the normal technical requirements of novelty, inventiveness and industrial application.

Moreover, an application for a utility model would not require a formal verification, and the utility model would be granted without prior examination of the basic conditions relating to novelty and inventive activity, so that it could be provided rapidly and at lower cost.

A utility model application would give rise to no more than a check to see that the formal requirements for protectability were satisfied, without any examination to establish novelty or inventive step.

The ESC recommends: - a further preventative analysis of protection systems complementary to the patent, to be described as "utility models" (UM), together with a more complete integration of available assessment data; special regard to be paid in this connection to weaknesses in the EU patent system, which is still seriously incomplete and disparate compared to its main competitors, the USA and Japan; - a guarantee, in the event of proposals for harmonization, not only of measures for the harmonization of substantive laws, but also of procedures and timescales for obtaining and enforcing UMs, together with the introduction of a cheap, quick and easy (especially for SMEs) assessment and enforcement method which excludes substances and pro ...[+++]cesses from eligibility for protection; - a guarantee of eligibility for UMs for innovations which satisfy the following requirements: a) "absolute novelty"; b) "possibility of application in the industrial field"; c) "inventive step" (Art. 56 of the Convention on the European Patent) or which have a practical industrial advantage over the previous state of the art; the scope of protection should emerge from a limited number of "claims" and the search for earlier "state of the art" should be optional in general, and compulsory for those wishing to enforce UM rights vis-à-vis a third party; - investigation into the feasibility of active assistance and advice in respect of national UM deposit and registration procedures being provided for firms - particularly SMEs - by a central Community or European agency; and investigation of the scope for application of computer digital language to the European patent system; - deferral of any measures for mutual recognition until substantive and interpretative harmonization has taken place; a feasibility study on creation of a Community UM covering the whole of Europe could be carried out, but only after a thorough examination to check that harmonization and mutual recognition measures ...

Unlike patents, utility models are granted without a prior search to establish novelty and inventive step.