Brussels 23/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - A press release indicates that the dossier on the Community patent is soon expected to reach a positive conclusion. This follows MEPs from the European Parliament's legal affairs committee granting a mandate on Tuesday 22 November to three MEPs to begin negotiations with national governments.
Bernhard Rapkay (S&D, Germany) is the rapporteur on the draft regulation on this future patent and its characteristics. Raffaele Baldassarre (EPP, Italy) is working on the provisions determining the translation of the document and Klaus-Heiner Lehne (EPP, Germany) is examining the future legal system for resolving litigation, which will be the subject of an international agreement between member states.
The three rapporteurs have indicated that they will work on the three different dimensions of the same package of measures, which means that none of these can go through without agreement from the others. The rapporteurs also want the three aspects of the patents to enter into force at the same time once negotiations are concluded, explains the press release.
The introduction of the Community patent (which has been the subject of discussion for decades) aims to improve the competitiveness of European companies when competing against their US or Japanese competitors by reducing patent costs by up to 80% and reducing the level of litigation relating to different national laws on patents. The linguistic option selected by the Commission and the EP legal affairs committee includes a patent that is granted in English, German or French (requests can be made in all the different languages, as well as the cost for the translation into one of the three official languages). This has led to Italy and Spain refusing to support the initiative until now. The 25 other member states decided to use the enhanced cooperation procedure in an effort to unblock the initiative.
The first piece of legislation in the package is a regulation setting up a unitary patent protection system. The MEPs from the EP's legal affairs committee endorsed the Commission proposal, and in particular a provision allowing inventors from countries currently outside the procedure to apply for an EU patent. Rapporteur Bernhard Rapkay will strive to amend the text so as to introduce specific provisions to ensure that small firms benefit from reduced costs and a sound system for distributing patent renewal fees. With regard to the language regime, Raffaele Baldassarre will ask for special provisions for small firms, including a special reimbursement and easier access to patent protection.
The legal affairs committee points out that with regard to patent protection “an international agreement is currently being negotiated by member states participating in the procedure” to create a unified patent court so as to reduce costs and uncertainty as to the law due to differing national interpretations. The committee explains that Klaus-Heiner Lehne will seek “to ensure that the litigation system is efficient, by giving it a decentralised structure, clear procedural rules and judges selected for their competence”. The vote on this package is planned for the middle of December at the legal affairs committee. The objective of both the EP and Council is to reach an agreement on all these provisions before the end of the year. (SP/transl.fl)