[Ecommerce] EU: Plan for European patent court may fail (EPLA)

[Michelle Childs]

<snip> Europe's industry ministers met on Monday to discuss how to
establish the long-planned European Patent Litigation Agreement which
would commit its signatory states to an integrated judicial system for
patent disputes, including uniform rules of procedure and a common appeal
court. They discussed long-standing problems with the proposal and failed
to come to any agreement.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/12/plan_for_european_patent_court_may_=
fail/

Plan for European patent court may fail, says EU Commissioner
Bickering over details to blame

By OUT-LAW.COM &#8594;
Published Tuesday 12th December 2006 11:00 GMT

 The EU Internal Markets Commissioner has warned that Europe is about to
miss out on a chance to forge a pan-European patent disputes forum
because of long-standing international bickering on what a system might
look like.

Following further fruitless discussions between European countries this
week, Charlie McCreevy has warned that the entire plan could stall.
=93Anything remotely concerning this patent area is fraught with minefields
at every turn of the road,=94 McCreevy told the Financial Times.

Europe's industry ministers met on Monday to discuss how to establish the
long-planned European Patent Litigation Agreement which would commit its
signatory states to an integrated judicial system for patent disputes,
including uniform rules of procedure and a common appeal court. They
discussed long-standing problems with the proposal and failed to come to
any agreement.

France said it wanted any EPLA to be taken out of the hands of the
European Patent Office (EPO) and put into the control of Europe's existing
courts system. Others, too, have questioned the accountability of an EPLA
tied to the EPO and not to the EU itself.

Belgium reportedly argued that entry into an EPLA agreement should be
voluntary, and that countries should not be forced into the scheme by
European decree.

McCreevy sought permission from the national ministers to negotiate on all
of the EU's behalf for entry into the EPLA scheme. That was not given.

McCreevy has already amended his EPLA plans this year. The European
Parliament objected to a motion on joining the EPLA on grounds of
accountability, cost and the prospect that it would make software patents
more likely.

Members of the Parliament proposed their own, softened, version of
McCreevy's motion, which they passed in October this year. That motion
said that the Parliament "considers that the proposed [EPLA] text needs
significant improvements, which address concerns about democratic control,
judicial independence and litigation costs, and a satisfactory proposal
for the Rules of Procedure of the EPLA Court."

After this latest setback McCreevy told the Financial Times that he was
"pessimistic" that any progress would ever be made.

=93I thought what we were proposing here would not be that difficult for
member states to accept," he said. "But anything of significance is
becoming increasingly difficult to to make progress on.=94

A separate plan for a Community Patent has also failed to make significant
progress since being proposed by the European Commission in 2000. It would
give inventors the option of obtaining a single patent that would be
legally valid throughout the European Union, saving significant costs in
the protection of an invention. But a failure to agree on the requirements
for the translation of patents and on how infringements of patents which
might arise as a result of mistranslations should be treated has stalled
progress.

Copyright =A9 2006, OUT-LAW.com

OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons.


--
Michelle Childs -Head of European Affairs
Consumer Project on Technology in London
24, Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX,UK.
Tel:+44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252.
Mob:+44(0)790 386 4642. Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607
http://www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA .Tel.:
+1.202.332.2670,Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Consumer Project on Technology in Geneva
1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727