The Community Patent is Dead, Long Live the London Agreement?

As readers may remember, the European Commission proposals for the Community Patent, which were first tabled in July 2000, would create a single procedure for patenting throughout the EU and an ‘EU Patent Court’ in Luxembourg, so that disputes could be resolved by one body rather than in each member state. The Commission claims the new proposals would halve the current cost of registration within the EU, although it would still be higher than in Japan or the USA.

Ministers at the Competitiveness Council in March 2003 agreed a common political approach, but sticking points regarding translations remained (particularly regarding the delays of translating patent claims and also in the validity of patents with errors in their translations) and these were unresolved in November 2003. The Commission, in an effort to push the proposals through, put forward a watered-down offer of a nine-month threshold for the delay in translation, but Germany and Spain maintained they wanted a longer time period as a minimum requirement. Germany is also against the idea of the EU patent court.

The prospect of these issues being resolved in the near future looks slim. The former Irish Presidency of the EU declared that an agreement was now further away than in November 2003.