// ...I thought the patent systems were still strictly national.
the patent systems are still national (with some exceptions like the complex mess in the EU), but there's nothing to prevent LU (or anyone else) filing in multiple jurisdictions. one can submit a single filing under the Patent Cooperation Treaty that preserves the priority date, but the national phase still has to be completed later in each country. without the potential patent holder simply giving you a reference, there's no way to tell whether a similar patent exists in any particular jurisdiction without doing an explicit search (and google's patent search only covers US patents to date).
