COMPETITIVENESS COUNCIL : EU PATENT: ENHANCED COOPERATION BY 25 UNDERWAY.

Enhanced cooperation' with a view to establishing unitary patent protection is officially up and running. The Competitiveness Council gave its green light, on 10 March, despite continued opposition by Italy and Spain and the negative opinion issued by the EU Court of Justice, on 8 March, regarding the patent court. The idea is to create a single patent that will be less costly through a single application procedure that produces effects in all the member states, unlike the existing system governed by an intergovernmental agreement(1).

The Commission's proposal on language rules for the patent, amended by the Belgian EU Presidency in November 2010, is based on the three languages used in the European Patent Office - English, German and French - and non-legal translations of the invention's characteristics into English and one of the other 20 languages. The Italians and Spaniards objected to this system, which introduces "language discrimination incompatible with the spirit of the treaties," they repeated, on 10 March.

Since unanimity proved impossible on the language rules, 25 member states decided to use the enhanced cooperation' mechanism, authorised by the Amsterdam Treaty, for only the second time (first used in June 2010 for divorce proceedings for binational couples). The Commission therefore presented a proposal to this effect, on 14 December 2010, at the request of 11 member states at the outset. Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier finds the proposal "legally secure, economically vital and politically acceptable". In his view, it makes unitary patent protection available to all EU businesses - including those in Spain and Italy. This view is not shared by the Spanish and Italian officials.

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