Brussels, 13/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - Over seven hours of talks were not enough to break the deadlock over the issue of the Community patent, at the Internal Market Council in Brussels on Monday. The aim was to find agreement among the Fifteen for the EU to request of the Board of Administration of the European Patents Office (EPO), meeting in Munich on 13 March, to convene a diplomatic conference so as to include the future Community patent in the statutes of the Office. According to the Commission's proposal, submitted in June 2000, the EPO would be responsible for awarding and managing the future Community patent.
"We did not manage to reach agreement on a simple question of procedure", Council President, the Swedish State Minister for Trade, Leif Pagrotsky told the press. Whereas, "that very morning during the debate on preparations for the Stockholm Summit, Member States placed emphasis on the need to modernise Europe, as soon as we broached the practical details to respect the undertakings made in Lisbon, we were unable to reach agreement", he continued, explicitly scathing at Spain and Portugal, the two "Lisbon initiator States", but blocking the adoption of a compromise. This deadlock is all the more "regrettable", remarked the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Fritz Bolkestein, in that the financial stakes are sizeable: the price of patents in Europe is 5 to 8 times higher than in the United States, and "Europe must pay 8 billion dollars a year to American patents holders, whereas Member States only pay European patent holders 3 billion dollars", he said.
As mentioned in yesterday's EUROPE, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Belgium opposed the Presidency's project that would, on 13 March, have enabled the EU to request the convening of a diplomatic conference of the European Patents Office. The five States would have liked the Fifteen first to reach agreement on the very content of the Community patent, before beginning negotiations within the EPO. It was urgent that a decision be adopted, Commissioner Bolkestein assured us, as "the diplomatic conference must meet before July 2002. After that date, new States, candidate States will accede to the Office in Munich and it will be much more complicated to amend the convention".
Spain denounced this "blackmail", stressing that the Administrative Board of the Patents Office would again be meeting on 26 and 27 June, which leaves the EPO plenty of time to convene a diplomatic conference in 2002, and the Council the time to reach, on 5 June, agreement on the content of the Community patent. It is therefore "unnecessary to put the cart before the horse", remarked a Spanish diplomat, stressing that it was a question of "the first formal debate in Council on the Community patent". "We must not build the house starting with the roof", and Italian diplomat agreed.
As to substance, Spain and its allies consider that four questions first need resolving: 1) the linguistic regime: the Office in Munich only uses French, English and German, whereas a minority of Member States would like a wider range of languages to be used: 2) the decentralisation of competencies: several States want national patent offices to remain in place and serve as intermediary between the EPO and those wishing to deposit a patent. The question of revenue to come from the management of patents naturally means discussions on this point; 3) the competence of the Court of Justice: the Commission has proposed the creation of a chamber within the Court of Justice responsible for managing problems linked to the respect of EPO patents (fraud, etc.), principle that was taken on board in the Treaty of Nice. Italy, notably, pleads in favour of a decentralisation of legal competencies; 4) "utility models", kind of "poor-man's patent" that allows for the rapid registration of technical creations or small improvements to existing products. A proposal for a utility model has been on the Council's table for three years. For Spain, the questions of the patent and the "utility model" must be dealt with together.
On the fringe of the Council, rumours had it that Spain's hidden goal was to allow for the location of the patent office in Alicante, which Spanish diplomats deny. The question of the body that will manage the Community patent, on the other hand, does indeed have to be examined. "Munich is no panacea", declared a Spanish diplomat, noting that "many national patent offices have a broad field of competency, like Madrid, Stockholm and Vienna, which are three European branches of the WIPO".
Commissioner Bolkestein hoped that the Stockholm Summit would allow for the Gordian knot to be cut".