Verheugen calls for EU patent with teeth

Munich: Gunter Verheugen has called on member states to back commission proposals for a European community patent.

“We need the European patent,” he told journalists in Munich on Thursday. “This is indispensable and I really urge national leaders to reconsider their positions to allow us to move forward”.

Verheugen’s comments follow German chancellor Angela Merkel's calls on Wednesday for Brussels to reopen the debate. Berlin is set to hold meetings with the EU executive in May and June over the issue, a commission source said.

The German enterprise commissioner said that he is “optimistic” about a postive outcome and believes there will be a European community patent within “five years”.

“We have a strong competitive disadvantage with the present system,” he said. “The European patents are nine times more expensive than the American and Japanese”.

Companies and scientists applying for a streamlined European patent at the European patent office (EPO) – a Munich-based non-EU body comprising 37 European states – must file the application in all member-states languages. But the translation costs of the files, which are typically thousands of pages long, are taking opportunities away from SMEs that should be most protected, Verheugen argued.

“The SMEs in Europe are not only the engines for growth and jobs but also the engines for innovation... a strong majority of innovation comes from SMEs,” he said.

A lack of a judiciary to follow-up claims at the European level is another major obstacle, with companies having to take complaints to each individual member state when they fail to settle their issues.

“It is a little bit strange that we have a Europe-wide system for patent applications but we don’t have a litigation system,” Verheugen said. He addmitted however that it is not clear to the commission whether the EU has the legal competence to address this type of issue.

The European community patent idea comes from the USA, where disputes are solved at the board of patent appeals and interferences, with further appeals being allowed at the federal level and, failing that, to the United States supreme court.

“Appropriate use and appropriate protection of IPRs is an indispensable part of our strategy for innovation in the EU,” Veheugen said in a speech at the European inventor of the year awards in Munich on Wedneday.

“We have to maintain our competitiveness not just for economic reasons but in order to guarantee that we can maintain the very special, particular and unique European way of life in a more and more globalised world”.

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