COMPETITIVENESS COUNCIL/PATENTS : NEGOTIATIONS STUMBLE OVER SEAT OF UNIFIED PATENT COURT.

It is mainly over the issue of the headquarters of the future European patent litigation system that discussions stalled at the Competitiveness Council of 5 December 2011 in Brussels. London, Munich and Paris were candidates, but the latter was proposed by the Council Presidency - which the "losing" cities did not take well to. Waldemar Pawlak, the Polish minister of the economy who was presiding the Council, admitted to the press that after ten hours of negotiations "the extremely well-pondered compromise that we presented was not fully green-lighted this evening". He added, with some disappointment, "yet nearly everything had been resolved".

The twenty-five ministers whose capitals have committed to enhanced cooperation (Italy and Spain are opposed to the translation system and are not participating) for the establishment of a future European unified patent discussed the jurisdictional system at this Competitiveness Council. Several loose ends had been identified by the Presidency, which had the firm hope of these being resolved, thus ending nearly thirty years of negotiations on a key subject for the functioning of the single market. After the agreement reached on 2 December between the Presidency and the Parliament's negotiators on the regulation (co-decision) establishing the future patent and the regulation on the translation modalities, the path was free for a formal agreement on first reading (see Europolitics 4319 and 4320). All that remained was for the chapter on future jurisdiction to be validated, since the latter required an intergovernmental agreement. The Presidency had high hopes of reaching a positive solution before the end of its term and had even planned an official commemoration for the ratification of the intergovernmental agreement at Warsaw's Royal Palace, on 22 December.

SINGLE JURISDICTION

The aim of the structure that needs to be put in place to rule on decisions regarding patents is to compensate for the failings of the current systems. These failings are caused by national courts that generate legal uncertainty because of varying and also costly treatments. The proposal on the table establishes a single jurisdiction that is a harmonisation of the current regime and the future regime on the EU patent. This harmonised case law would have exclusive competency to rule on counterfeit cases and cases of validity relating to current European patents and future unitary patents. This harmonised case law would also be...

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