This is part of a report published by AIPLA after the Second International Symposium on Reduction of Patent Costs held in Paris 22/23 October 1997, during which meeting the following vision of international patenting in the Year 2020 was developed.

The participants noted that by the Year 2020, several cooperative and technological advances will have been achieved. Among these were:

• electronic filing,
• worldwide access to patent databases,
• further development of PCT,
• the prospect of global early publication,
• on-line interconnection of patent offices, and
• a mutual recognition of work between the Trilateral offices.

The participants strongly indicated that harmonisation on unity of invention was likely to have occurred by 2020, and additionally there would be progress toward both harmonisation of substantive patent law Trilaterally and harmonisation of procedures in the Trilateral. The participants also noted that additional groupings of nations would begin to issue regional patents, but that national offices would still be functioning.

While most of the participants agreed that online examinations might exist by the Year 2020, there was not a strong feeling that effective automated examination systems would be in place. The participants also felt that there was a reasonable prospect that there would be comprehensible, accurate machine translation available by the Year 2020.

The participants felt that by 2020, the Republic of China would be cooperatively engaged in patenting and that the Chinese patent office would have become the fourth large international player.

The group was uncertain as to the prospect of a single Trilateral patent based on mutual recognition, or a Trilateral designation of a single working language. Simultaneously, there was not a common view as to the continued use of patents as a general revenue source by governments.

The participants concluded that there was less prospect of both complete substantive harmonisation of global patent law and mutual recognition of work between offices globally.

With regard to potential changes in patenting, the participants concluded that the prospect was not strong for:

• alternative forms of protection to replace patents,
• a single global working language,
• certainty of scope of protection, or
• a single world appeals court.