By Chris Jones - 3rd April 2007
Attempts by Charlie McCreevy to get plans for an EU-wide patent system back on track have been criticised by small business leaders as moving too slowly.
The internal market commissioner unveiled new proposals on Tuesday with a view to kick-starting the stalled patent proposals that have been kicking around Brussels for decades.
McCreevy said that EU businesses were losing out because of the complicated system of patents currently in operation in the EU – intellectual property rights have to be registered, and defended, in each member state.
This means that Europe’s current patent system is considerably more expensive than the US and Japanese systems: a European patent registered in 13 countries is 11 times more expensive than a US patent and 13 times more expensive then a Japanese patent.
Agreement by member states has been hard to find, with national governments stumbling over the issue of what language a community patent should be written in.
Initial proposals to publish patents valid across the EU only in English have been opposed by several countries, notably France, which is concerned about a loss of influence.
Many member states also want a more centralised of patent litigation, coordinated by the European patent office, but many companies believe this would be too costly and slow.
McCreevy’s proposal is that each member state designate a number of courts to deal exclusively with patent cases at the EU level, allowing EU patent cases to be dealt with more swiftly and effectively.
UEAPME, which represents small businesses in the EU, welcomed McCreevy’s commitment to getting an EU patent in place but said the real issue to address was that of language.
“The unresolved community patent leaves European SMEs without one of the essential instruments to innovation,” said Luc Hendrickx, UEAPME director of enterprise policy.
“Translation requirements would further raise the administrative costs, which are often unbearable for SMEs, and hamper access to patents.”
He added that small businesses would also continue to press for lower patent costs and a separate litigation system for SMEs.
The foundation for a free information infrastructure, which represents more than 3000 small-to-medium IT firms, went further, arguing that the proposals completely overlooked the reality of life for most SMEs.
FFII president Pieter Hintjens said that the EU was “following the US down the risky path of a central patent jurisdiction, when this experiment has failed miserably in the US”.
“The commission insults the many SMEs who participated in its patent consultation by claiming that they are uninformed when they say the patent system does not fit in their business model.”
“[The commission’s] focus on patent litigation costs is like putting lipstick on a pig. Unless the quality problems in the European patent office’s functioning are addressed, cheaper litigation will only make matters worse,” Hintjens added.
“Cheaper litigation by itself would merely result in a US-like litigation explosion, which is devastating for small companies.”
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