[FYI] EU Community Patent

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

<http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt& 
doc=MEMO/01/210|0|RAPID&lg=EN>  

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Results of the Internal Market Council - Brussels, 31 May 2001  


DN: MEMO/01/210     Date: 2001-06-01  


                              TXT: EN
                              PDF: EN
                              Word Processed: EN

MEMO/01/210  

Brussels, 1st June 2001  

Results of the Internal Market Council - Brussels, 31 May 2001  

Community Patent (JT)  

Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein stressed to Member 
States the need to respect the four key principles of the proposal to 
establish a Community Patent, namely affordability, legal security, 
procedural efficiency and simplicity. He also underlined that in the 
year since the proposal was presented by the Commission (see 
IP/00/714), little progress has been made towards meeting the goal 
set by the March 2000 Lisbon European Council of adopting the 
Community Patent proposal before the end of 2001 as part of the EU's 
efforts to become the most competitive economy in the world by 2010.  

As a result of very considerable efforts by the Swedish President of 
the Council, Leif Pagrotsky, supported by the Commission, a 
compromise was reached on guidelines for future work on the proposal 
based on the principles of full respect of the Community legal order, 
legal security, affordability, user responsiveness, procedural 
efficiency, simplicity and non-discrimination between Community 
citizens. These guidelines recognise the central role to be played by 
the Munich-based European Patent Office (EPO) in the granting and 
administration of Community Patents, whilst recognising that national 
patent offices should also have an important role. This role for 
national patent offices would include advising potential applicants 
for Community Patents, receiving applications and forwarding them to 
the EPO and disseminating information about Community Patents. 
National patent offices would also be able to carry out activities in 
their respective working languages, such as searches related to 
Community Patent applications, as long as they met agreed 
requirements. The questions of the nature of the activities and of a 
possible quantitative limit on the activities will still have to be 
further considered. Applicants would remain free to have their 
Community Patent applications fully processed by the EPO.  

The guidelines also recognise the need to keep costs at a competitive 
level and that a certain percentage of income from annual renewal 
fees for the Community Patent should be distributed among Member 
States/national patent offices. On jurisdictional arrangements, the 
guidelines indicate setting up of a system in accordance with the 
framework of Articles 225 a and 229 a of the EC Treaty as adopted at 
Nice. The first instance judicial panel should be arranged with 
account taken of the need for uniform application of Community law 
and factors such as cost effectiveness, demand and local languages, 
closeness to users and use of any existing infrastructure and 
expertise. Appeals would be heard by the EC's Court of First 
Instance. On languages, the guidelines state that the Community 
Patent system should be based on the general principles outlined 
above, including the principle of non-discrimination.  

The Council also agreed to mandate the Presidency to take the 
necessary procedural steps to request the Administrative Council of 
the European Patent Organisation to put on the agenda of its next 
meeting (25 to 29 June 2001) the convening of a Diplomatic Conference 
for the revision of the 1973 European Patent Convention (EPC), in 
order to accommodate the Community Patent, on the understanding that 
no negotiations on this matter would begin before a negotiation 
mandate was decided by the Council. This was the procedural step the 
Council had proved unable to agree at its previous meeting on 12th 
March (see MEMO/01/80).  

The proposal for a Council Regulation to create a Community Patent 
would give inventors the option of obtaining a single patent legally 
valid throughout the European Union The proposal would significantly 
lessen the burden on business and encourage innovation by making it 
cheaper to obtain a patent and by providing a clear legal framework 
in case of dispute. The Lisbon and Feira European Councils cited the 
creation of a Community Patent as an essential part of Europe's 
efforts to harness the results of research to new scientific and 
technological developments and so contribute to ensuring a 
competitive, knowledge-based economy in Europe.  

Under the Commission's proposal, Community Patents would be issued by 
the existing European Patent Office in Munich. National and European 
Patents would coexist with the Community Patent system, so that 
inventors would be free to choose which type of patent protection 
best suited their needs. This proposal would provide for a Community 
Patent system that was both affordable and legally certain.  

[...]

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