What I am going to do is to start at the beginning, skim the middle, and talk about where we are now.

The beginning – 1962

Amongst my late father's papers I found a little (just over A5 size) booklet with a fading green outer cover. It was published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office in 1962 and the price was five shillings. It is entitled Translation of a Draft Convention relating to a European Patent Law. The original document was prepared by a committee of representatives of the six members of the EEC. The draft said that ‘European patents’ shall have a unitary and autonomous character, that they shall have effect in the territory of all Contracting States, and should be subject only to the provisions of the Convention.

So the idea of a proper European Patent is very old – going back to the time before I, at least, had only the faintest idea about patents at all. Many people now involved in patents were not even born. It was a time when the phrase ‘intellectual property’ was unknown to all but a few specialists – and to those few, it meant copyright and like rights only. It was a time when there was very little intellectual property litigation.