On Wednesday 13 March, MEPs adopted the report by Adrián Vázquez Lázara (Renew Europe, Spanish) on the regulation creating a European compulsory licence (484 votes in favour, 121 against and 20 abstentions). The text aims to enable the European Commission to issue compulsory licences to companies, i.e. to allow a company to use a patent without the authorisation of its holder, in cross-border emergency situations and under strict conditions.
However, the spirit of the text is to favour the use of voluntary licences, i.e. agreements between patent holders and users, before resorting to compulsory licences, insisted the rapporteur.
None of the amendments submitted by the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) were adopted. These were aimed in particular at enabling users of patents under compulsory licence to export products manufactured outside the EU. The authors of the amendments cited the case of the Covid-19 vaccines as an example.
The rapporteur and the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, have indicated that the export of products manufactured under compulsory licence does not fall within the scope of this regulation.
See the report adopted: https://aeur.eu/f/bag (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)