New bid to create EU-wide patent law

The European Commission sought yesterday to break a logjam over attempts to introduce a European Union-wide patent to spur new products and growth.

The EU executive launched a consultation on how best to resolve the failure among member-states and the European Parliament to agree draft single community patent rules proposed by the Commission more than five years ago.

The consultation will seek alternatives such as bringing national patent rules more in line with each other.

"Good intellectual property rules are essential: by stimulating innovation and leading to the successful development of new products, they help to generate growth and jobs," EU internal market and services commissioner Charlie McCreevy said in a statement.

The EU community patent draft rules have foundered over which languages should be used in registering patents. Firms currently apply for patents in each member-state, an expensive process, particularly for smaller firms, when it comes to defending any infringement in one or more national courts.

The draft rules proposed a single, EU-wide patent to cut costs of registration and defending patents.

Two similar attempts at harmonising patents across the European Union have also faltered. A 1998 directive on biotechnology patents has still not been fully introduced by all member-states, several years after the deadline.

Rules on patenting computer-implemented inventions were killed off by the European Parliament last year.

The consultation ends on March 31st, with a hearing on June 13th.

It asks how the patent system can be improved, whether national patent laws could be brought closer to each other, and what should be done about handling legal disputes over patents.

Some European Union lawmakers believe that an EU-wide patent would be tricky to introduce without the Germany-based European Patent Office, a non-EU body, coming under EU law so that all member-states have to abide by its decisions.

EU business wants patents to be registered in English only to cut translation costs, but EU member-states have failed to agree to what extent a patent should be translated into the official languages of the bloc. - (Reuters)