(4) Community patent law applicable to the Community patent should not replace the laws of the Member States on patents, nor European patent law as established by the Munich Convention. It would not in fact appear to be justified to require undertakings to apply for registration of their patents as Community patents, since national patents and European patents continue to be necessary for those undertakings which do not want protection of their inventions at Community level. This Regulation should therefore be without prejudice to the right of the Member States to grant national patents.

It is important to note that the Regulation does not set out to depart substantially from the principles embodied in national patent law already in force in the Member States; these have all acceded to the Munich Convention and have, moreover, largely harmonised substantive patent law in accordance with the Luxembourg Convention, even though the latter Convention has never entered into force.

Currently, although the procedure for granting that right is unitary, the European patent breaks down into a bundle of national patents, each governed by the domestic law of the States which the holder of the right has designated.

It deals with the unique automatic right of injunction, which to my knowledge only exists in Canada and the United States and, as far as our patent laws are concerned you being a lawyer and having been the Minister of Justice only exists in the drug industry.

Within Europe national patent law has become harmonised over time and in 1973 all EU Member States signed the European Patent Convention (known as the EPC or Munich Convention) which established the European Patent Office (EPO) and a single procedure for granting patents. The Munich Convention, however, is not a Community but an intergovernmental regime.

In order to determine whether they have the desired effect of appropriately balancing the interests that lie in this area between the rights of patent holders to protect their patents-which I believe is what he is endeavouring in suggesting that these should not be changed-against the interests that consumers have in the legitimate acquisition of generic products when patent rights have expired-to which I am sure he also does not object-I think he understands that the essence of patent protection is that it extends for a period of time after which it ends.