By Simon Zekaria - 11th March 2004
Years of national bickering continue on Thursday as EU governments failed to broker a concessionary deal over the creation of a European patent system.
EU national competition and trade ministers convening at a council meeting in Brussels could not come to agreement over the controversial patent scheme – three decades after the plan was first conceived.
And the Irish government, chairing the meeting under the EU’s rotational presidency, issued a downbeat warning to lawmakers: “We are further away from an agreement than in November”.
November 2003 saw the stalled talks on the EU patent – a system harmonising the registration of innovations in Europe - reach its nadir as national delegations failed to come to agreement over the central sticking point of the proposal; the legal effect of patent translations.
And it is this language question that continues to divide EU states – both in the delays of translating patent claims and the validity of patents with errors in their translation.
EU member states retain the right to translate the patent claims into national langauges for effect in the union.
The European Commission, in a watered-down bid to push the laws through, tabled a compromise offer of a nine month threshold for the delay – to no avail.
Germany on Thursday was digging in its heels for a 12-month limit as a minimum requirement.
Grave prior warnings from the commission that the chances of agreement on the issue were “not enormous” have proved true.
Indeed, the EU executive this week blasted member states for dragging their feet on the patent system.
Ministers reached political agreement on the issue in March last year, but stopped short of adopting the measures into law.
Brussels claims that the EU patent proposals will halve the cost of patent registration from €50,000 to €25,000 for the 25 member states from May 1, when the EU expands by a further 10 countries.
An EU 'Patent Court' will also be set up to hear disputes, a move which the EU hopes will reduce legal uncertainty caused by individual challenges in each of the EU member states.
Thursday’s developments will be hard-felt by the Irish, who banked on successful talks on the patent to kick-start European competitiveness.
Mary Harney, Irish minister for enterprise, trade and employment, said before the marathon talks that agreement on the patent is "the litmus test" of the EU's self-styled ‘Lisbon process’; a goal establishing the EU as the most competitive global economy by 2010.
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