Brussels, 03/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - During the Competitiveness Council on Monday 2 December, Michel Barnier, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market said that he would have wanted the first unitary patent to be adopted before the European elections but acknowledged that the “task is turning out to be tougher than expected”. The question was tackled during the miscellaneous points part of the meeting and the Lithuanian Presidency informed the European delegations of the work of the two committees dealing with the introduction of protection through a unitary patent and the modalities for its unified jurisdiction.
The Lithuanian Presidency clearly confirmed that the beginning of the year 2015 was an “ambitious but realistic” target for beginning Unified Patent Court operations. However, Commissioner Barnier stressed that, if they were to achieve this aim, the 25 member states committed to the unitary patent have to ratify the agreement on this subject (agreed last winter) as soon as possible. He welcomed the fact that Austria has already ratified it and other member states, such as France and Belgium were just about to. Things are also being put in place in the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland and Denmark but obviously this would be a very close run thing for 2015. The Commissioner concluded that, “if we collectively manage to get a balanced mechanism up and running as soon as possible at both financial and legal levels, I have no doubt that the unitary patent will be a great success”. (MD/transl.fl)