Brussels, 27/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - At the extraordinary meeting of the Competitiveness Council in Luxembourg on Monday 27 June, the ministers of 25 member states agreed to pursue enhanced cooperation with a view to setting up a unitary patent system in Europe. Only Italy and Spain opposed this initiative, believing themselves victims of discrimination as a result of the proposed translation system and believing use of enhanced cooperation to be illegal (see EUROPE 10389). The debate will continue under the Polish Presidency to put in place a forum for settling disputes which complies with the provisions of the treaty following the opinion of the Court of Justice on this issue (see EUROPE 10331).
The 25 ministers gave their support to the final Presidency compromise on two proposals for regulations by the Commission: one on the arrangements for the issue of European patents to inventors to ensure uniform protection for their inventions across all the member states which are part of the system, and the other relating to the arrangements applicable to the translation of the patent itself.
In approving this compromise, the member states “proved they give great importance to the competitiveness of European industry and especially to SMEs”; they have taken “a major stride towards a crucial decision which has long been under discussion”, said Hungarian Minister of State Zoltán Cséfalvay, who chaired the meeting.
In giving their backing to the compromise which they described as well thought-out and balanced, most delegations highlighted the difficulties which had been overcome.
Thus, with regard to the mechanism for allotting the revenue from duties levied when a patent or renewal was applied, duties designed to cover the costs of managing the system, the smaller member states were pleased to see that allocation dependent on population and market size no longer formed part of the Presidency compromise. A number of them said, however, that this was a point that had to be refined in discussions to follow.
Most delegations welcomed the 12-year transition period for the full translation of patents into two of the three languages of the European Patents Office (English, French and German) and the compensation to be paid by the Commission to companies to cover translation costs while awaiting the implementation of an efficient and effective automatic translation system. It is the system of translation of patents which is the source of Italian and Spanish opposition to the current plans.
As expected, the Italian and Spanish delegations confirmed their opposition to the project. They first and foremost consider that implementing enhanced cooperation in this respect is illegal, as it runs counter to the 2009 Council conclusions providing for unanimity on the matter. Another objection raised concerns the fact that an issue, which they consider should come under Community competence, had been referred to the European Patents Office (see EUROPE 10330). Both countries, moreover, pride themselves on the conclusions reached by the Court of Justice which, on 8 March this year, considered the treaty on jurisdiction established within the framework of the unitary dispute settlement system with regard to patents as not being compatible with the treaty. This aspect is closely linked to the two other chapters of the proposal (issuance conditions, translation) and its non-compliance makes the project “non viable”, both countries say. Finally, the main objection concerns the linguistic regime which both countries consider to be discriminatory towards their own national languages. The Spanish minister said on this subject that such discrimination could create a precedent. (F.G./transl.rt/jl)