PhD student: Dr C.A.M. Mulder

Promotors: Prof A.W.J. Kamperman Sanders, D. Stauder

Duration: 1/4/2010 - 1/6/2014

PhD defence: Maastricht, 19/12/2011

Abstract:

Patent Law Treaty (PLT) is aimed at streamlining and harmonising formal requirements for filing and processing of national/regional patent applications. PLT has been implemented in, e.g., Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and European Patent Convention (EPC). Surprisingly, not much harmonisation and streamlining can be detected between the PCT and the EPC. The research will investigate how a number of crucial issues of the PLT (e.g. accordance of filing date, filing by reference to another application, filing missing parts of an application, correction or addition of a priority claim, restoration of right to priority, etc.) and investigate how these issues were implemented in these patent laws in parallel. This project will elucidate how these issues were implemented differently with the aim of giving recommendations for improving the implementation of the PLT.