Harney faces EU patent deadlock

The State's presidency of the European Union faces a near-impossible task today as it attempts to break deadlock over a proposal to create Community-wide patent protection for the intellectual property rights of inventions.

The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, who will chair the EU's competitiveness council, needs some kind of miracle to achieve agreement.

"It is not impossible. We are not quite in a flying-pig situation, but the chances are not enormous," said Mr Jonathan Todd, spokesman for the European Commissioner for the internal market, Mr Frits Bolkestein.

Mr Todd said failure to agree on the Community Patent was undermining the EU's ambition to create the world's most dynamic and competitive economy by 2010.

Mr Bolkestein said last week: "How can ministers with a straight face say they want more research and development and innovation in Europe and then... block the Community Patent?"

For the past four years, at the annual Spring European Councils, which are supposed to monitor economic reform, the heads of state and government have repeatedly called for the Community Patent.

But now the Irish Presidency faces the embarrassment of heading into the European Council on March 25th without a Community Patent.

"If ever there was an example of where ministers' declarations failed to live up to actions on the ground, then this is it," Mr Todd said.

He said that the Irish presidency had done "an enormous amount of work" to try to get agreement. But officials said that the terms of a deal had been unravelling since November, when the proposal foundered over disagreements between Spain and Germany over language and law.

The Community Patent is supposed to reduce the costs of patent protection and make it easier to bring inventions more quickly to market.