The members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) adopted the report by Adrián Vázquez Lázara (Renew Europe, Spanish) on the regulation introducing the European compulsory licensing on Tuesday 13 February (17 votes in favour, 6 against). The Commission proposed this text in its patent package in April 2023 (see EUROPE 13171/1). It should enable the Commission to grant compulsory licences at European level for products needed in the event of a crisis, i.e. to oblige the holder of a patent to release the rights to it. Member States already have this option at national level, but the EU considers that a Europe-wide licence is necessary to cover products with a cross-border dimension.
In the report adopted, MEPs specify the conditions for granting compulsory licences, as well as the rules to be complied with by manufacturers using patents in this way. For example, they specify that the compulsory licence can only be issued if a voluntary agreement has not been reached within four weeks.
The European Parliament also wants to go further on the principle of compulsory licensing: the European Commission must be able to oblige a patent holder to divulge trade secrets if this is necessary to make use of the patent, and under strict conditions.
Such disclosure should therefore be taken into account when calculating the patent holder’s remuneration, say MEPs. They have also amended the article on remuneration: they maintain the link with the income generated by the use of the patent, but remove the ceiling of 4% of this income that the Commission had envisaged.
Finally, companies benefiting from compulsory licences can only manufacture a pre-defined number of products in response to the crisis.
All MEPs are expected to vote on the report at the March plenary session.
See Adrián Vázquez Lázara’s draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/atz
See the compromise amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/au0 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)