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Deal hoped by end year in rumbling EU patent dispute

06 December 2011, 14:05 CET
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Deal hoped by end year in rumbling EU patent dispute

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(BRUSSELS) - A final deal in a three-decade struggle to agree a single European patent was held up when the 25 EU nations committed to its launch failed to agree on where to headquarter its tribunal, Poland said on Tuesday.

The bloc's European ministers "agreed on substantial issues" at talks in Brussels but failed to decide on the location of the court that will arbitrate differences, said Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak.

"I think it will be possible to reach a compromise," he added, saying that Poland had already booked the royal palace in Warsaw for the final signing. "We hope to conclude this December 22," he said.

Efforts to launch a single patent, making it up to 80 percent cheaper as well as easier for inventors to protect their work, have been going on for some 30 years.

Waldemar said the ministers had agreed to locate an appeals court in Luxembourg and mediation and arbitration centres in Lisbon and Ljubljana but that there was no agreement on the central division of the future Unitary Patent Court.

Sources said Britain, France and German were all lined up to host the tribunal.

Italy and Spain have opposed the system in anger over the use of English, French and German as its three official languages.

Under the current system inventors must acquire patents in individual countries, a process that can cost up to 20,000 euros (28,000 dollars), including 14,000 euros in translation fees.

This compares to 1,850 dollars which investors spend to protect their work in the United States.

In May, Italy said it had lodged a formal complaint with the European Court of Justice against a decision by 25 EU member states to come up with a European patent without its consent.

3133rd Council meeting Competitiveness (Internal Market, Industry, Research and Space) - Brussels, 5 and 6 December 2011 (provisional version)


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