Expensive litigation

Information gathered by the European Patent Office discloses that to litigate a small- to medium-sized patent case in England costs between three and 10 times as much as the same case in Germany or the Netherlands. The Gowers Review published in December 2006 stated that a company wishing to challenge a patent through the courts would expect to incur costs as high as £750,000, and nearly double that if it had to bear the other sides of costs as well. Last year, there were 500 patent trials in Germany, but in England only 12 reached judgment at first instance, and there were less than 20 patent trials in the Patents County Court.