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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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