Brussels, 12/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday evening, due to a spat over linguistics, EU governments were unsuccessful in reaching agreement on the creation of a patent common to all 27 EU states in order to reduce the cost of protecting innovation, which is tenfold that in the United States. European Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier then pointed out that, in the following stages, status quo is not a sustainable solution. The Commission confirms it will move forward constructively with the EU presidency within the treaty framework.
During an extraordinary meeting in Brussels of the Council of Ministers for competitiveness, none of the compromise proposals put forward on the number of translations necessary in the EU to allow a patent to be valid throughout the Union was endorsed, unanimity by all 27 member states being required.
The European Commission had suggested a system based on three official EU languages - English, French and German. The industrial patent would be registered in one of these three languages and a summary would be translated into the other two, bringing the cost of translation to about €680. At present, the cost is €20,000, of which €14,000 is for translation, to validate a patent in just half of the EU countries. In the United States, €1,850 is enough.
Spain and Italy, however, find this discriminatory. They say their national languages are not recognised in the same way as the other three for validating the document. One compromise suggestion put forward during the meeting, that only English should be used, was not taken on board.
In his statement, Barnier said a compromise between all 27 was out of reach on a subject that Europe has been coming up against for the past 10 years. The failed discussions would bring “serious consequences”, he said, because “the absence of a European patent hinders our competitiveness, hinders European innovation, research and development. In the midst of the economic crisis, it is not the right signal”.
It is possible at present that, given this impasse, a small group of European countries will seek to seal an agreement between themselves on a joint patent as part of “enhanced cooperation”, a formula made possible by the Lisbon Treaty. Such a formula, which has only been used once so far for divorce legislation, was evoked by the United Kingdom, which triggered an initiative to overcome the deadlock. In a letter to Barnier, the British government - backed by Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Sweden - calls for the enhanced cooperation mechanism to be activated with regard to the European patent, allowing participant countries to move forward. Italy and Spain took the British initiative very badly. (Gp/transl.jl)