Ministers move forward on EU patent
'At today's Competitiveness Council, 11 Member States stated their
agreement to work to implement the European patent via the procedure of
enhanced cooperation,' announced Belgian Minister for Enterprise and
Simplification Vincent Van Quickenborne on 10 December. His words mark
the beginning of the end of a decades-long impasse on the difficult
issue of a single European patent.
Mr Van Quickenborne continued: 'The agreement of today means that in
the future the cost of a European patent will be reduced by a factor of
10, and the result will be that the cost of a patent in Europe will be
competitive and comparable to that of the cost in the United States and
in Japan, and this will of course greatly benefit competitiveness in our
industry.'
As the minister pointed out, the idea of creating a single European
patent was first mooted back in 1949. However, getting Member States'
agreement on this thorny subject has, until now, proven impossible. Like
many Member States before them, the Belgians made the EU patent one of
their priorities when they took over the Presidency of the EU Council
back in June. Initially, they strove to get all 27 Member States on
board.
'We tried hard to reach unanimity,' reported Mr Van Quickenborne. 'I
can say that we left no stone unturned.' By November's Competitiveness
Council meeting, it was clear that it would be impossible to arrive at a
compromise satisfactory to all EU countries.
Instead, in what Mr Van Quickenborne described as a 'brave
decision', a number of Member States opted to use the 'enhanced
cooperation' procedure, which allows nine or more countries to move
forward on an issue which is being blocked by a small number of Member
States.
According to the Lisbon Treaty, enhanced cooperation can only be
used 'as a last resort, when it has established that the objectives of
such cooperation cannot be attained within a reasonable period by the
Union as a whole, and provided that at least nine Member States
participate in it'.
The 11 countries interested in using enhanced participation for the
patent issue are: Denmark, Germany, Estonia, France, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden and the UK. Other
countries may join the system later if they wish.
The European Commission must now assess whether the request for
enhanced cooperation is valid; on Tuesday 14 December, the European
Commission is expected to discuss putting forward a formal proposal for a
Council decision authorising the application of the enhanced
cooperation procedure to the creation of an EU patent.
Speaking after the Competitiveness Council meeting, European
Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier set out the
next steps: 'This is an institutional decision of principle which will
open the way for enhanced cooperation.'
He went on to say: 'The decision on Tuesday will not deal with the
substance. It is a proposal for the Council to take a decision. The
European Parliament will also be asked to give its opinion and agreement
to this proposal. Then at its next meeting the Competitiveness Council
will take the formal decision under the Hungarian Presidency. In all
likelihood this will be in March.
'As soon as the formal decision is taken by the Competitiveness
Council, the Commission will make legislative proposals with a view to
the de facto implementation of this cooperation by virtue of two
regulations, firstly on the creation of single protection and then we
will also have a second regulation on translation arrangements.'
Once these legislative proposals are on the table, normal EU
legislative procedures will be followed. Mr Barnier commented that he
hoped these deliberations would be 'wrapped up by the end of 2011'.
However, the move for enhanced cooperation is not without its
detractors. Spain and Italy sent a letter to the Council and Commission
claiming that the patent issue does not meet the requirements of the
enhanced cooperation procedure.
'Enhanced cooperation should only be applied as a last resort
mechanism, a requirement that is not met in the negotiations concerning
the Patent's language regime,' they write. In their opinion, the
importance of the issue to European competitiveness is 'well worth the
additional effort needed to reach the unanimity desired'.
They call on the European Council to 'consider the need to continue
negotiations in order to find an agreement between all the Member States
on the language regime of the Patent of the European Union.'
Meanwhile the Belgians are proud of their efforts regarding the
patent, calling the result of the latest Competitiveness Council the
'cherry on the cake' of their EU Council Presidency. 'The EU patent was
one of the priorities of our presidency. I'm pleased to say that we've
managed to conclude it with this important result,' commented Mr Van
Quickenborne.
Source: Community R&D Information Service (CORDIS)