Issued on 4 December, the paper sets out priorities for the EU's internal market for the next decade, as determined by specialist industry forum the Competitiveness Council. Among these is a clutch of IP-related measures - one of which highlights the importance of establishing a Community patent.
Focusing on the post-2010 development of the Lisbon Strategy, devised to form a cohesive economic approach for the EU, the new policy paper sets out broad aims for enhancing trade, consumer confidence and links with external markets. Among the IP priorities affirmed in the paper is the necessity for a European Patent Court. In addition, there are calls for further improvements in the protection and enforcement of IP Rights, enshrined in a comprehensive European IP strategy that will strengthen the competitiveness of European businesses.
The Competitiveness Council stresses that reaching agreement on these points will 'contribute to the implementation of the free movement of knowledge and innovation' in the internal market, helping to stimulate growth and jobs. It calls the mobility of knowledge the 'fifth freedom', complementing the other EU freedoms of capital, services, goods and individual movement.
At present, innovators can file for European Patent Office (EPO) patents under the European Patent Convention (EPC), established in 1973 and revised in 2007. However, the EPC provides for a system that runs in parallel to the national patent laws of Member States, rather than one that supplants them.
Work towards a Community patent would require steps to harmonise national patent laws. In that framework, each patent granted would take effect in all Member States regardless of where it was filed. While supporters of a single patent argue that it would make economic sense, sceptics have highlighted language barriers as potential obstacles to harmonisation.
Large corporations with extensive patent portfolios have expressed enthusiasm for the efficiency and cost improvements that would result from patent harmonisation. In September, Microsoft vice president and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez argued that a global, harmonised patent system, answerable to a single court, 'would resolve many of the criticisms levelled at national patent systems over unmanageable backlogs and interminable pendency periods'. Gutierrez also stressed that harmonisation would provide vital support for the cross-border innovation that takes place in global companies.
Sweden, current holder of the EU Presidency, has hailed the Competitiveness Council's commitment to a Community patent. In a press release, the Swedish government said that a harmonised system 'will mean that people can apply for a patent to be valid in the entire EU - a market of some 500 million people'. It also pointed out the positive impact that an EU patent would have on small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Not only would it be cost effective, it would also 'remedy the current situation where it is much more expensive to get patent protection in the EU than in our competing markets. Protection in 13 Member States currently costs 11 times more than a patent in the United States'.
Swedish trade minister Ewa Björling said: 'I am very pleased that we have finally seen a political breakthrough in these difficult negotiations that have gone on for so long. I am proud that the [Competitiveness] Council has now sent a clear and unambiguous signal to Europe's innovative companies that have long been calling for an improved patent system.
'The EU patent,' she added, 'will make it much easier and cheaper to protect innovations in the EU. This will give European industry better opportunities to compete on the global market.' Meanwhile, Swedish justice minister Beatrice Ask dubbed the establishment of a European Patent Court 'the single most important measure for promoting innovation in Europe'.
