Talk:Patent office

Italicized patent offices

IMHO, this sentence is confusing:

The entries shown in italics are regional offices which may only perform some stages of the patenting process - for example the EPO only performs the grant phase, not enforcement.

Many national patent offices are not involved in enforcement proceedings anyway, while national courts are competent. --Edcolins 08:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

A good point, The entries shown in italics are regional offices which centralise some portion of the process of obtaining a patent in multiple countries? Kcordina ^Talk

Why not "The entries shown in italics are regional or international patent offices."? The European Patent Office is in charge of the whole process of obtaining European patents. --Edcolins 09:37, 30 June 2006 (UTC)