Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-28-Speech-4-142"
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"en.20060928.24.4-142"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for two years now, I have been one of the two rapporteurs in the European Parliament's steering group for the Lisbon process. As you know, we launched the Lisbon process together in 2000, and, since then, we have worked tirelessly to point out, in declarations of the Heads of State or Government and in Parliamentary resolutions, that the development of the European patent system is one of the most important preconditions that will enable us to reach the goals defined by Lisbon. I was impressed by Commissioner McCreevy's emphasis on the importance of this matter. Our goal must be to achieve a simple, cost-effective patent, applicable throughout Europe if at all possible, which gives not only big business but, in particular, small and medium-sized enterprises the opportunity to protect their innovations in the internal market: indeed, it is medium-sized enterprises that hold the greatest number of innovative patents.
The decisive issue is that we must make changes in Europe's current fragmented patent landscape, with the aim of drastically reducing consultancy, procedural and translation costs, which are a particular burden on small and medium-sized enterprises. That is the decisive goal that we must achieve. Of course, people can already obtain protection for their inventions throughout Europe, but, in practice, they have to do so in all Member States, either directly through the national patent offices or indirectly through the European Patent Office, with the bundle of patents that has been mentioned. In the event of disputes or infringements they must, in theory, launch proceedings, incur legal costs and so on in all these countries. This must be resolved and made more viable and practicable, particularly for SMEs. The internal market needs to be developed further in this respect.
Under your predecessor, Mr Bolkestein, an admirable proposal for a single European patent regulation to establish a Community patent was set in motion. However, when Article 308 is the legal basis and unanimity in the Council is required, it is difficult to reach agreement. In this particular case, agreement could not be reached in the dispute about languages: there are currently 20 official languages that the Council is demanding; after the next enlargement there will be 22. The industry is quite rightly saying that nobody needs that sort of patent: it is so exorbitantly expensive that it is of no use and practically no economic value. The competitiveness of the European patent would push us a long way back in global terms and not guarantee the necessary quality. A patent of this kind would only be of benefit to very big, rich businesses that could afford that kind of thing, and perhaps not even to them. For medium-sized businesses it would be completely unusable. Therefore, the Regulation is stuck fast, and the Council is not shifting.
My suggestion of continuing with harmonisation, which you were so good as to include in the consultation, Commissioner, was also rejected by all parties, primarily following our experiences with the second reading of the Directive on computer-implemented inventions, which showed that there was a risk that legislation could be enacted that would not improve the current patent system, but would make it considerably worse.
So, we have made no progress with harmonisation either. What, then, is left for us to do? What is left is that we must carry on and further develop the currently existing patent system. There are, however, institutional problems in this regard: on the one hand, the European Union's fully legitimate claim that the Member States should not legislate in areas that, at any rate, actually lie partly in its sphere of competence and belong to the internal market; and, on the other hand, the Member States' keenness to make progress. I take the position that we must try to link these two problems together to solve them. In my view, one conceivable option would be for the European Union to be involved in some way – to be decided by negotiations – in the European patent agreement and, in return, for the European Union to clear up the institutional concerns regarding the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA). This could be one way in which we could improve the situation while agreement cannot be reached in the Council regarding a Community patent.
With regard to the lobby's publicly expressed criticisms, in my view, the claim that the introduction of a single European patent court within the meaning of the EPLA would make it easier to patent software is, to put it mildly, nonsense. It is pure speculation for which there is no evidence – one of those matters comes under procedural law, and one under substantive law. Nor is the EPLA more expensive. It must be clear that apples are being compared with oranges here. If the EPLA is in place, it will not be necessary to pursue legal disputes in all the countries involved: one court, the second instance, so to speak, will reach a judgment that is equally binding on all signatory States.
I am most grateful to Commissioner McCreevy for the way in which the consultation was conducted. I gather from the Commissioner's public comments that he, too, has obviously drawn the right conclusions from the results of the consultation. I should like to say, both personally and on behalf of the great majority of my group, that we share and support this position. There is no alternative. Otherwise, the grand project of developing the European patent system is doomed to failure."@en1
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