Brussels, 12/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Internal Market/Consumers Council, gathered this Monday in Brussels, was dominated by a laborious debate over the Community patent, which delayed the remainder of the works.. The Member States confronted each other, at length, over the opportunity to accede to the European Patent Office in Munich, before the EU has itself adopted the Community patent. The Presidency had proposed to send a political signal for the calling of a diplomatic conference in order to launch in the given time the EU accession process to this office that will be responsible for issuing the future Community patents. A significant minority lead by Spain, followed by Portugal, Belgium, Italy and Greece where opposed to it. Spain, notably, called for a the issue of languages in the Community patents to be resolved before hand, and thus the questions of the management of the future revenues of the Munich Office. Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Austria and the Netherlands called for, on the contrary, the adopting of the Community patent (before June 2001) in order to avoid the continuation of the flight of European patents to the United States.
In the evening, the Council continued the discussion over this issue and intended to then begin its policy debate, no less difficult, over the distance selling of financial services Directive on the basis of a compromise by the Presidency, trying to find a fair balance between the majority in favour of a total harmonisation of national legislation and the minority delegations favourable to a minimum harmonisation.
During the lunch, the Ministers also had an exchange of view on: a) parallel imports and commercial brands in view of a revision of Community legislation; b) the regulation to protect Community models and the patentability of software. They where also informed of the results of the informal "Employment and Telecommunications" Council in Lulea (15-17 February). EUROPE will return to the complete results of the session.