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The European Patent Convention (EPC), also known as the Convention on the Grant of European Patents of 5 October 1973, is a multilateral treaty instituting the European Patent Organisation and providing an autonomous legal system according to which European patents are granted. The term ''European patent'' is used to refer to patents granted under the European Patent Convention. However, a European patent is not a unitary right, but a group of essentially independent nationally-enforceable, nationally-revocable patents,〔The view that a European patent issues as independent national patents in each designated Contracting state is very convenient from a practical point of view. Some however consider this view as incorrect: :"''The view that, after grant, a European patent breaks up into a bundle of national patents in designated Contracting States may appear plausible, but it is incorrect both in law and systematically''", Singer/Stauder, ''The European Patent Convention, A Commentary'', Munich, 2003, under Article 2. Singer/Stauder's view seems in turn rather theoretical in view of decisions ''Roche Nederland BV v Primus'' and ''GAT v LUK'' of the European Court of Justice (see also "Enforcement and validity" section), which reinforced the independent character of a European patent in each Contracting State. As Tom Scourfield wrote in an article commenting on these two decisions: :"''(...) a European patent is no more than a bundle of national patents pursuant to a single application. Until a true community patent becomes a reality it seems likely that true community enforcement will continue to elude patent owners.''" Tom Scourfield, ''Jurisdiction and Patents: ECJ rules on forum for validity and cross-border patent enforcement'', The CIPA Journal, August 2006, Volume 35 No. 8, p. 535.〕 subject to central revocation or narrowing as a group pursuant to two types of unified, post-grant procedures: a time-limited opposition procedure, which can be initiated by any person except the patent proprietor, and limitation and revocation procedures, which can be initiated by the patent proprietor only. The EPC provides a legal framework for the granting of European patents, via a single, harmonised procedure before the European Patent Office. A single patent application, in one language, may be filed at the European Patent Office at Munich, at its branches at The Hague〔 or Berlin〔''(Decision of the President of the European Patent Office dated 10 May 1989 on the setting up of a Filing Office in the Berlin sub-office of the European Patent Office )'', OJ 1989, 218〕 or at a national patent office of a Contracting State, if the national law of the State so permits. ==Background and rationale== Before 1978, two important problems when seeking to obtain patent protection in Europe in a number of countries were first the need to file a separate patent application in each country, with a subsequent distinct grant procedure in each country, and secondly the need to translate the text of the application into a number of different languages. Different languages are indeed utilised across the European countries and there is substantial expense in preparing translations into each of those languages. While the European Patent Convention does not totally overcome the need for translations (since a translation may be required after grant to validate a patent in a given EPC Contracting State), it does centralise the prosecution in one language and defers the cost of translations until the time of grant. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「European Patent Convention」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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