:: PhD thesis

PhD-thesis

On 19 December 2011, Cees Mulder successfully defended at Maastricht University a PhD thesis entitled:

“On the Alignment of the European Patent Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty with Requirements of the Patent Law Treaty”

The Patent Law Treaty was drafted with the aim to “streamline and harmonize” formal requirements set by national or regional Patent Offices for the filing of national or regional patent applications and the maintenance of patents. During the past few years requirements of the Patent Law Treaty have been implemented in, for instance, the European Patent Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Upon studying and comparing the outcome of the implementation, not much harmonization and streamlining can be detected between these patent treaties.

For the purpose of the thesis, a number of core issues of the Patent Law Treaty have been selected:

  • Requirements for the accordance of a filing date, including the filing of an application by reference to a previously filed application and the filing date where a missing part of the description or a missing drawing is filed;
  • Relief in respect of time limits, including extension of time limits, continued processing and reinstatement of rights after a finding of due care or unintentionality by the Office; and
  • Restoration of the right of priority.

The implementation of these issues in the European Patent Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty has been studied and compared to each other. In addition, the negotiation history of these issues is described resulting in the adoption of the Patent Law Treaty at a Diplomatic Conference in Geneva in 2000.

Promotor is Prof. Anselm Kamperman Sanders PhD (Lond).

The Thesis can be ordered by filling in the Order Form. Click to fill in our Order Form online.
The price of the book is € 35.00; the price is without postage & packaging, transaction charges and VAT. For deliveries outside the European Union (e.g. Switzerland) VAT is charged also for company orders. This is to prevent high administrative costs when a customs declaration has to be prepared.

In 1982, Cees already defended another thesis, but at that time the subject was in Physics (Leiden University): "Cooperative Phenomena in Manganese Spin Systems at Low Temperatures".