Fewer EU Patents: Good - and Bad

First the good news:

Last year, the European Patent Office (EPO) issued far fewer patents than in 2006. The Munich patent authorities have announced that they approved exactly 54,699 patent applications for commercial protection, 12.9 per cent fewer than in the previous year. EPO President Alison Brimelow says the drop is the result of a new focus on the quality of patents rather than quantity; patent applications actually increased by 3.9 per cent to 140,700. She said her office is making sure that the temporary monopoly rights granted are actually relevant. She says the figures show that the EPO is headed in the right direction.

Well, maybe, but heise online also has this to say:

Nonetheless, the EPO staff's morale seems to have never been lower. A survey conducted among several thousand staff members found that only 4 per cent have faith in the management board. Only 6 per cent said they were satisfied with their direct superiors and the president. The auditors have also long been complaining that they are chronically overworked.

Last April, Brimelow herself complained that the backlog of work at the EPA and the other two largest patent offices in the US and Japan was only growing and could no longer be handled by current staff.

So fewer patents may well simply be the result of the fact that the EPO is getting swamped, and that quality will actually go down, not up. In any case, the EPO's own cries for help demonstrate that the idea of giving the EPO any more power through a unified European patent system is madness.